Union Public Schools preparing for end of Pandemic waivers for school meals

TULSA, Okla. — Waivers authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the pandemic have allowed public school districts to provide meals to students at no cost. But those are set to expire at the end of June.

FOX23 News spent time at Union 8th Grade Center in Broken Arrow on Monday to learn more about how the school district plans to deal with the transition.

Families will need to go back to filling out applications to apply for free and reduced meals for students who qualify, just like they did before the pandemic.

And for those who do not qualify, they will have to go back to paying for their lunches again.

We spent some time in the cafeteria to learn more about what kids are eating these days; taco salad, meatball subs, lasagna and chicken on waffle flatbread were being served.

“I got pears or peaches, I have French fries, I got a meatball sub and I like to add jalapenos and stuff,” said student Chris Torres.

Sides include veggies and fruit. Chocolate milk is still popular with students, and everyone has their favorites.

“The food is good,” remarked Daijon Jaines, “but chicken fried Thursdays is great.”

Waivers given to school districts have allowed all students to eat for free over the past two years.

Since those are coming to an end, parents will need to go back to filling out applications for free and reduced lunches, something they haven’t had to do in quite a while according to Union Public School’s Child Nutrition Director Lisa Griffin.

“And it’s sort of hard to change because families been getting this for two years,” she explained, “and then they’re going why, why is it changed? It’s because of the waivers,” Griffin said.

Another big change for the school district is a loss of funding as the amount that they are reimbursed for breakfast and lunch by the USDA declines.

“It’s going to average about $1.20 less for lunch and fifty cents less for breakfast,” Griffin said, “that equates to $2 million less of funding that we’ll receive as a department.”

A hard hit for a school district facing rising food costs and supply chain issues.

Griffin said they’ve served an additional 700,000 meals this school year with the waivers in place, with most of that increase in the secondary schools.

“700,000 extra meals tells me that there’s a great need among families,” Griffin explained, “they need these meals and they need them to be free so that their kids can eat.”

While Griffin said the district will not allow anyone to go hungry, filling out those applications ensures that the district does get re-imbursed by the state.

Anyone interested in more information on how to fill out an application for free and reduced meals at Union Public Schools can check out their website.

Another change is that free meals over the summer will only be made available to summer school students on site who are in class.

According to Griffin, almost 75 percent of students in the Union Public School District are on free or reduced lunches, so the changes affect a significant portion of the student body.

Other schools in the Tulsa region will also be dealing with this same issue at the end of June.

FOX23 reached out to Tulsa Public Schools and received a statement from their Chief Finance and Operations Officer Jorge Robles, which mentioned that the district remains hopeful that the waiver may still be extended.

But the district has processes in place to make sure families and students can submit the necessary information to have access to free and reduced meals during the next school year.

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