School board agenda: School meal rate to increase
Due in part to new federal regulations, the price of meals in all Riverhead schools will increase by 25 cents for the 2011-12 school year, school officials said.
The Board of Education voted 6-0 Tuesday, with vice president Greg Meyer absent, to raise the price of breakfast and lunch at all district schools.
The cost of breakfast at elementary schools will rise to $1.25. Students at the junior high school and high school will pay $1.50. Last year’s prices were $1 and $1.25.
The price of lunches for elementary, junior high and high school students will jump to $2.25, $2.50 and $2.75, respectively. Last year, those lucnhes cost $2, $2.25 and $2.50. The rate change will not apply to free or reduced-cost meals.
A new federal regulation took effect July 1 requiring many school districts to raise prices on full-cost or “paid” lunches this school year. The increases are expected to raise $300 million nationwide in five years to help offset the cost of higher-quality meals mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
The price hikes are the first the federal government has instituted since the National School Lunch Program launched in 1946.
School districts that do not subscribe to the federal lunch program, such as neighboring Shoreham-Wading River, will not be affected by the regulations.
