As of Wednesday, Nov. 1, all students in the Delaware Academy Central School District at Delhi are eligible to receive free breakfast and free lunch meals at school.
This has been made possible through the USDA’s expanded Community Eligibility Provision, which allows eligible schools participating in the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs to offer school meals at no charge to students. Delaware Academy was already participating in two national school meal programs and after advocacy efforts and repeated applications, was able to meet the updated requirements in the expanded program, according to District Superintendent Kelly Zimmerman.
The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a non-pricing - free - meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas, administered through the US Department of Agriculture. Essentially, it uses a different formula to calculate the eligibility of students in an entire district, and does not require the collection of information from individual households. For several years the district hovered close to the previously established eligibility threshold that would have established DA as a ‘high needs’ district based on economic need. However, this required families to complete detailed applications to demonstrate individual need. The new provision both eliminates the degree of detail and lowered the threshold for district-wide or universal eligibility.
