Think there’s no such thing as a free lunch? LS School District disproves old adage

Money won’t be an issue when it comes to school lunches in the Lee’s Summit School District this semester. The district has obtained funding to allow it to serve all its students food for free until the end of December.

Although it will run through the fall, the plan is called the Seamless Summer Option because it’s an extension of a longstanding national summer program backed by the Missouri Department of Education. The district received an area eligibility waiver to offer this through the fall term.

“This was approved because of the pandemic. Normally, it’s only allowed at schools where a certain percentage of students are on free and reduced meals,” said Lori Danella, director of nutrition services for the district.

She said any school in Missouri could apply for the waiver and get the funding to offer meals for free, but some districts might not have the staffing or the materials to package up so many meals on a regular basis.

“So many people have said, ‘Why does Lee’s Summit need to do the free meals?’ But when you look at what COVID has done: the unemployment rate, the families just being at home — their grocery bills have gone up. This service has helped so many,” Danella said.

According to Danella, the district provided more than 550,000 meals for curbside pickup from March through July, in addition to 200,000 meals served in-house to students over the summer.

“It’s been a win-win all the way around. It helps us offer to students that might be too proud during the school year to come into the cafeteria and eat if there’s a status quo. Parents are picking up for them or some families pick up for other families,” she said. “I’ve heard more kids talking that they’ve eaten a school lunch for the first time.”

Other parts of the school food programs have also seen modification because of supply issues with distributors. Danella said the district has gotten meal pattern waivers.

Normally, school meals have to follow certain guidelines, like including a particular number of orange and red vegetables each week. The waiver allows them to substitute items as necessary if an item such as carrot sticks is unavailable that day through the distributor.

When they finally do get the missing item, it will immediately go into the next set of meals, Danella said.

Another waiver has allowed the district to offer multiple days’ worth of meals for pick-up, so parents can get two days of meals per student on Mondays and three on Wednesdays. They can pick up both breakfast and lunch at the same time, and students do not have to be present at the pick-up.

Student meal pickups are available from noon to 1 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays at Prairie View, Meadow Lane, Lee’s Summit, Westview and Mason elementary schools; Summit Lakes, Pleasant Lea and Bernard Campbell middle schools; and from 5 to 6 p.m. at Lee’s Summit High School. Parents can see the planned menus at leessummitschoolnutrition.com.

The district does not require advance signups, although they do ask parents to fill out a form on their website if possible to help them know how many people to expect.