Back to School Brings Free Breakfast/Lunch for Most Students
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
Moving into the new school year, four of Anderson County’s five school districts will offer free breakfast and lunch for all students. Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 offer the free meals to all, while Dist. 1 will offer the service at seven of their 14 schools. The remainder of that district’s schools will provide free breakfast and lunch for students who meet certain edibility requirements.
The funding is based on the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program that allows eligible schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students, regardless of their family's income. This option is designed to increase access to nutritious meals, reduce administrative work for schools and families, and eliminate the stigma associated with receiving free or reduced-price meals.
Anderson School Dist. 5 Superintendent Brenda Kelley sees the free lunch program as a crucial part of their mission.
“All our students eat free, we are very blessed with that,” said Kelley . “So every student eats free breakfast and lunch at every school that we have. It is very important. I mean, if you're hungry, you're not able to listen, you're not able to pay attention, you're not able to comprehend what's being asked of you, you're not able to generate ideas and questions to ask back.”
“And it is very important for our children to have that peace of knowing every morning when they get off the bus or are dropped off at school, they can have breakfast, and that every day they will have lunch.”
The district also has a partnership with United Way that allows us to send home food for children who might need extra food over the weekend. This program currently serves 450 students every Friday who receive food for the weekend. The United Way also partners with the other four school districts for the program.
“Having that nutrition met is very important to academic achievement and to student success,” said Kelley.
Eligible schools must have an Identified Student Percentage of need for at least 25 percent of a school, group of schools or entire district. This percentage is based on students who are "directly certified" for free meals.
Students receive Direct Certification if their households are enrolled in certain government assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Medicaid. It also includes students who are certified as homeless, migrant, runaway, or in foster care.
Schools participating in CEP do not collect individual meal applications, instead, they are reimbursed for meals served using a formula based on their ISP. The ISP is multiplied by a USDA-established factor (currently 1.6) to determine the percentage of meals that will be reimbursed at the federal free rate.
The remaining meals (up to 100 percent) are reimbursed at the federal paid rate. There is no reduced-price meal category under CEP.
Based on projections from the state, the additional cost for Dist. 1 to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students would be approximately $1million. Currently, Cedar Grove Elementary School, Palmetto Elementary School, Palmetto High School, Palmetto Middle School, Spearman Elementary School, West Pelzer Elementary School, and Wren Elementary School are eligible for the free meals.
Dist. 1 is the most underfunded district in Anderson County, due to South Carolina Act 388, which shifted the funding of schools away from homeowners. The act eliminated property taxes on owner-occupied homes for school operating expenses and replaced that revenue source with a portion of a new statewide sales tax.
The act's "tax swap" made school funding for operations dependent on sales tax revenue, which is less stable than property taxes. During economic downturns, such as the Great Recession that began the year after the act was passed, sales tax collections declined, leading to revenue losses for schools.
By eliminating the property tax burden on homeowners, the act shifted a greater tax responsibility for school operations onto other types of property, including commercial, industrial, and rental properties. This created a new tax imbalance without adequately stabilizing school funding and created long-term financial instability for public education in the state.
The state attempted to reimburse school districts for the lost property tax revenue, but these reimbursements were often insufficient to fully cover the losses. Over time, this has led to a growing gap between the funds schools would have received from property taxes and what they were given by the state. Some sources suggest that this net revenue loss has grown to over $1 billion annually.
Anderson County offers a clear example of how the legislation can lead to funding imbalances. Anderson School Dist. 5, with 12,000 students and a large industrial tax base, posted an annual budget of just over $161 million dollars for the current school year. Dist. 5 has one early childhood center, 11 elementary schools, four middle schools, and two high schools. The district also supports the Anderson Institute of Technology.
Meanwhile, Anderson School Dist. 1, with just over 11,000 students and a very small industrial tax base posted an annual budget of just over $120 million for the current school year, creating budget challenges. Dist. 1 has eight elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools. The district also supports the Anderson Career and Technology Center.
Dist. 1, which encompasses an area with tremendous residential construction, continues to look for potential funding options moving forward.
