Dr. Suzanne Scallion
WESTFIELD – A late dinner is usually the most discussed meal at Westfield School Committee meetings, but school lunches were a hot topic last night, as the school committee approved a small hike in the cost of those meals this fall.
The motion increased elementary school lunches from $2.20 to $2.30, while middle and high school lunches will go from $2.35 to $2.45.
Adult lunches will see an increase from $3.40 to $3.75, while the respective breakfast and reduced breakfast prices of $1 and 20 cents will see no changes.
“The adult lunch would be going up 12 cents, and the rest of it is a sales tax that they have to pay on an adult meal,” said Susan Petrola, the district’s supervisor of cafeterias.
She attributed the increase in prices to a required equity in pricing imposed by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.
“(The act) mandated that if you get a free lunch program, you have subsequently increase your regular meal plans,” she said. “We’re still way below average, even at $2.30. We’ve got districts that have started before us that are already up to $2.50 for elementary, and then for the middle and high schools, they’re up to $3.”
Petrola said that the act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, gives schools five years to reach a $2.65 minimum price, which is used to offset the cost of free and reduced meals, and that she would like to see the district increase in slow increments.
“There is a timeline that we have to meet this,” she said, prompting committee member Cindy Sullivan to add that the district could be penalized if they didn’t comply.
“You could lose funding if you do not offset,” she said.
Westfield Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Scallion reassured the committee that the district’s most vulnerable students wouldn’t be going hungry as a result of the increases.
“Our kids who are living in homes that this would hit the hardest won’t be affected, because most of those kids are in fact receiving free or reduced lunch, and those prices are obviously zero or very limited,” she said, prompting Petrola to state that the district’s reduced lunch price of 40 cents has not increased in nine years.
Scallion also added that 40 percent of the district’s students receive free or reduced lunch, 35 percent of those receiving free lunch.
