Studies have shown that children who are not hungry perform better in school. By providing lunch to all children at no charge, we are hoping to create a better learning environment for our students.
The school breakfasts and lunches that we serve follow U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines for healthy school meals. The School Breakfast and Lunch Programs cannot succeed without your support; please encourage your children to participate in the school meal programs.
If you have any questions about the program, email [email protected].
What is CEP?
Community Eligibility Provision is a program that allows us to serve free meals to all, regardless of income or household eligibility. Eligibility for CEP is determined through direct certification primarily via participation in SNAP and Medicaid, not through meal benefit applications.
How is it different from previous meal benefit programs?
CEP does not require meal benefit applications to be collected and processed, so they are a thing of the past! We also will not require students to enter their PIN at the point of service. This will allow for less administrative burden on our district, as well as fast lunch lines, resulting in more seated meal time for students.
Who needs to know about this?
Students and their families, district personnel
How will it affect our current families?
There should be no effect on families, other than not having to fill out a meal benefit application. The district may ask families to complete and submit a FEDS form (like the one we utilized this year) in order to collect economic data for district funding, but it will not be processed by the Nutrition Dept. Benefits like transit passes and Parks and Rec discounts may have to be determined this way as well.
What's the timeline of implementation of this program?
We will begin the program on March 1, 2024, per the Colorado Department of Education.
What should our current families do (and by what time)?
There is no obligation for families to do anything; but it may help to notify their students that the lunch line may look a little different – and faster!