Superintendent Natalie Gibson is looking for new ways to reduce the cost of school meals for families, staff members and the district as a whole.
At its June 18 meeting, the Van-Far School …
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Superintendent Natalie Gibson is looking for new ways to reduce the cost of school meals for families, staff members and the district as a whole.
At its June 18 meeting, the Van-Far School District Board of Education approved increased meal prices for the 2026-27 school year. For those eating both breakfast and lunch, the price per week will increase by $1.20 at the elementary school, $1.80 at the high school and $2.40 for staff members.
The decision came after a more than $140,000 swing in food service cost put the district $72,000 in the red.
“The bills were not pretty as the year wound down,” Gibson said.
Two years ago, Van-Far Elementary School was approved for the Community Eligibility Provision, a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education program that provides the option to offer free and reduced lunch to all students in high-poverty area schools.
At first, Gibson thought the program sounded like a blessing, but it has become more of a burden on the district’s finances than she anticipated.
“I’m not sure we’re going to be able to offer CEP again,” Gibson said. “I hate that, because I felt like it was such a wonderful thing to tell families that, ‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ but I also think if families realized how much it was costing us as a district, I think they would think that’s a ridiculous amount of money for what the kids eat out of it.”
Gibson said the students who qualified for free and reduced lunch increased by 5% this past year. That brought the district an additional $20,000 of revenue, but it’s still $72,000 in the hole, she said, which is a lot of money, especially in a time when public schools are looking for ways to trim their budgets.
“That’s not at all what I felt like the picture was painted by DESE Food Service,” she said.
Whether or not the district continues to offer CEP, students who qualify will still receive free and reduced lunch, but an application will be required.
One way the district can increase meal reimbursement and offset some of the cost is by of- fering a third meal after lunch before the students go home, but that presents its own challenges.
“The reason I’m cau tious about it is it might mean we might have to extend our day, and our day is already ending at 3:40 p.m.,” Gibson said. “When you have kids involved in extracurriculars, they may not even be there to get it because they might leave early and other things, so I just don’t even know if we could make it happen.”
Gibson said she will continue to look for ways to increase revenue to keep meal prices low for families while reducing the burden on the district’s budget.
