Iowa Reduced Lunch Statistics !FULL!
This map displays the percentage of public school students in each county in Iowa participating in the free/reduced lunch program. The data is from the NCES 2018 Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data.
Iowa Reduced Lunch Statistics
Families who earn less than 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free meals and those with incomes between 130 and 185 percent of poverty level qualify for reduced-price meals. In the Des Moines Schools, approximately 76.2 percent of the student enrollment qualifies for free or reduced-price meals. The prices for a paid breakfast and lunch are approved by the School board and the price of a reduced-price meal is established by the federal government. To determine your eligibility for free or reduced-price meals, please read the guidelines and complete the application. Return it to the Central Nutrition Center, 1225 2nd Ave., Des Moines IA 50314. For more information about the application process, call 242-7636.As the student goes through the lunch line he/she will enter their account number to purchase their meal. Students will be reminded by the cashier when their account balance falls below $5. Parents/Guardians are encouraged to maintain a positive account balance.
Brad Rose serves as athletic director for Valley High School, which has a large percentage of free and reduced lunch recipients, but he would rather remain in the 5A classification. He told KCCI that nearly 40 percent of Valley's students receive lunch assistance and "that could knock us down, but I don't think it would. I've looked at it. It would be interesting. We would petition to play up if it happened to us. We would stay up in the large class if we could,"
The IHSAA has had many internal conversations about classification over the last several years. The 40 percent free- and reduced-price lunch model was the first idea that proposed an adjustment to a school's enrollment figures, the IHSAA said. Currently, classifications for all sports, both through the IHSAA and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, are determined solely using school enrollment figures.
Disproportionality in discipline worsened last year for Iowa City schools' students who are Black or receive special education services and remained steady for those eligible for reduced price lunch, according to new data for the 2020-21 school year.
The child nutrition programs, including NSLP and SBP, were last reauthorized by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA; P.L. 111-296) in 2010. HHFKA also authorized the school meals eligibility option or CEP. CEP allows eligible schools and LEAs in high-poverty areas to offer free meals to all enrolled students without collecting household income information via applications. By no longer collecting household income information for free and reduced-price lunch, CEP can affect Title I-A grant allocations to schools, school eligibility to operate specific programs, and accountability policies. Thus, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has published policy guidance that provides LEAs and schools implementing CEP with alternatives for identifying students from low-income families for Title I-A purposes.
The number and percentage of a school's enrolled students from low-income families are used when LEAs allocate Title I-A grants to schools and to determine whether a school is eligible to use its Title I-A funds to operate specific programs. Additionally, schools need to identify which of their students are from low-income families to comply with certain accountability policies. Eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunch is commonly used as an indicator of low- income status for all of these purposes.
Under Title I-A, the allocation of funds to schools, eligibility to operate certain programs, and accountability requirements are based in part on identifying students from low-income families. More specifically, the number and percentage of a school's enrolled students from low-income families are used when LEAs allocate Title I-A grants to schools and to determine whether a school is eligible to use its Title I-A funds to operate specific programs. Additionally, schools need to identify which of their students are from low-income families to comply with certain accountability policies. Eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunch under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is commonly used as an indicator of low-income status for all of these purposes.
The child nutrition programs, including NSLP, were last reauthorized by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA; P.L. 111-296) in 2010. HHFKA also authorized a new school meals eligibility option: the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP).2 Prior to CEP implementation, students were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch based on family income or because they fell into a specified category (e.g., eligibility for another need-tested program, foster children). CEP now allows eligible schools and LEAs in high-poverty areas to offer free lunch to all enrolled students without collecting household income information via applications.3 By no longer collecting household income information for free and reduced-price lunch, CEP can affect Title I-A grant allocations to schools, school eligibility to operate specific programs, and accountability policies. Thus, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has published policy guidance that provides LEAs and schools implementing CEP with alternatives for identifying students from low-income families for Title I-A purposes.4
Unlike other federal elementary and secondary education program funds, most Title I-A funds are allocated to individual schools, often based on the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Generally, these same data are used to determine whether a school is eligible to run a schoolwide program with its Title I-A funds. As these data are no longer available in schools participating in CEP, ED has published guidance providing schools with a series of options on how to identify students from low-income families for purposes of allocating Title I-A funds to schools.17 This section of the report provides an overview of how Title I-A funds are allocated to schools, how schools determine whether they are eligible to run a schoolwide program, and the data that can be used to make these determinations in LEAs that do not have CEP schools and in those that do. The use of free and reduced-price lunch data to make accountability determinations is discussed in a subsequent section of the report.
Of note, the income eligibility thresholds for free or reduced-price lunch (130% of poverty for free meals, 185% for reduced-price meals28) are higher than the poverty levels used in the Title I-A allocation formulas to states and LEAs (100% of poverty).29
CEP schools no longer collect data on individual student eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch. ED's policy guidance lists several alternative data sources that states and LEAs participating in CEP may use in lieu of free and reduced-price lunch data to determine school-level Title I-A grants: (1) the count of identified students (i.e., students eligible for free meals based on categorical eligibility and non-household-application sources), (2) the count of students from low-income families based on state or local income surveys, and (3) free or reduced-price lunch data from the last school year before the school adopted CEP.30 Each of these options and ways in which they may affect allocations is discussed in more detail below.
LEAs may use a school's CEP identified student percentage to determine its share of students from low-income families for Title I-A purposes. More specifically, ED's guidance specifies that an LEA may use (1) the identified student percentage multiplied by 1.6 for CEP schools and the free and reduced-price lunch data for non-CEP schools, (2) the identified student percentage multiplied by 1.6 for both CEP and non-CEP schools, or (3) the identified student percentage with no multiplier for both CEP and non-CEP schools. As discussed previously, identified students are a subset of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Multiplying the share of identified students by 1.6 allows a school to estimate the share of students who would have been eligible for free or reduced-price lunch if the school were not participating in CEP.34 In addition, the 1.6 multiplier is used to determine the reimbursement rate for free meals.35
Under all three options, the change from free and reduced-price lunch data to identified student data may alter the estimated share of students in a school that are from low-income families.36 This may, in turn, affect the school rankings based on percentages of students from low-income families and affect which schools fall above and below the aforementioned thresholds used to determine Title I-A school grant amounts (e.g., to receive Title I-A funds, schools must generally have a percentage of children from low-income families that is higher than the lesser of 35% or the LEA's average percentage of children from low-income families). Thus, using identified student data may affect a school's eligibility to receive Title I-A funding and its grant amount. 041b061a72