Beginning within the 2025/26 faculty yr, households with college students in Broward County Public Colleges (BCPS) will as soon as once more want to use to find out eligibility without cost or reduced-price lunches, because the district’s two-year run of common free meals involves an finish.
The BCPS Meals and Diet Providers (FNS) Division will start accepting Meal Advantages Purposes on Monday, July 14, 2025, at www.myschoolapps.com. The net utility will stay open all through the college yr, however households are strongly inspired to use earlier than courses start.
College students receiving SNAP (Supplemental Diet Help Program) or TANF (Short-term Help for Needy Households) advantages, or who’re enrolled in Head Begin, Foster Care, Homeless, or Migrant packages, are mechanically licensed without cost lunch and don’t want to use.
Free lunch program ends as a result of expired funding
This transition follows the expiration of federal COVID-era surplus funds and program waivers that had allowed the district to serve free lunch to all college students no matter revenue. The district had been utilizing a mix of USDA initiatives—the Common Free Lunch Pilot Program and the Neighborhood Eligibility Provision (CEP)—to fund meals for all college students, together with its remaining federal fund stability.
Though these federal waivers expired in 2022, BCPS prolonged this system utilizing leftover funds. Mary Mulder, Government Director of Meals and Diet Providers, stated the district intentionally continued common free lunch to “deplete the fund stability again to the degrees which are applicable.” That balance is now exhausted, and faculties that now not qualify for CEP will resume charging for lunch.
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Along with the return of means-tested eligibility, faculty lunch costs are additionally rising by $1 throughout all grade ranges—the primary value adjustment in 12 years. Beginning subsequent faculty yr:
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Elementary faculty lunch: $3.00
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Center faculty lunch: $3.35
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Highschool lunch: $3.50
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Lowered-price lunch: $0.40
Breakfast will stay free for all college students below the USDA’s Common Free Breakfast Program.
Starting July 28, 2025, households are inspired to create a scholar account at www.myschoolbucks.com to handle meal purchases and a la carte objects all through the college yr.
For extra info or to use, go to www.myschoolapps.com.
