Dixon Public Schools: Implementing free lunch program for all students would be too expensive

DIXON — After a fundraiser was started last year to pay off unpaid student lunch fees at Dixon Public Schools, administrators have found it would be too costly to enroll in a federally assisted program that provides free meals to all students.

Destiny McElhinney, a mom of a third grade DPS student, started fundraising in December 2024 after learning the district had an outstanding balance of $9,625 in lunch fees. After an article about the effort was published by Shaw Local, community members began asking why DPS doesn’t offer its students free meals like Rock Falls and Sterling schools.

[ Donations paying off Dixon school’s student lunch debt spark larger conversation about school fees ]

Rock Falls Elementary School District 13 and Sterling Public Schools have been enrolled in the United States Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program Community Eligibility Provision for several years. The program allows a district that meets a threshold in its count of low-income students to provide free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students.

At the Dixon School Board’s April 16 meeting, Business Manager Marc Campbell told the board they evaluated the cost and would not recommend switching to the program.

CEP reimburses a district for the cost of meals based on its number of qualifying students, referred to as the identified student percentage. The ISP measures the amount of students who are deemed eligible for free meals based on a number of factors, including their eligibility for other federally funded programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for example.

The school’s identified student percentage must be 62.5% or greater in order to receive the free reimbursement rate for all reimbursable meals. Schools with ISPs from 25% to 62.5% are eligible for CEP, but at a lower reimbursement rate.

Districtwide, DPS’ identified student percentage is about 45%. This means the district would be reimbursed at 72% of the cost of all meals and be responsible for covering the remaining 28%, which comes to about $130,000 a year, according to the cost analysis provided by the Illinois State Board of Education.

“Some of our concerns lie, first of all, is that it is an unfunded expense that we would be taking on. It’s not very close to break even,” Campbell said. “In addition to that, with the uncertainty in the USDA, uncertainty with federal funding and the National School Lunch Program, it is really difficult for us to recommend at this time to enter into a four-year agreement when it’s so unpredictable right now.”

Campbell said $130,000 is “not a number I would want to go and search for within our budget.”

“We will do the evaluation every year and continue to monitor it,” he said. “At some point in time, we may find that it is more of a break even and it’s more appropriate for us.”

Under the district’s current lunch program, a hot lunch is $3 for students in kindergarten to fifth grade and $3.05 for students in grades six to 12. Breakfast is $1.30 for all students, Superintendent Margo Empen said.

“If you are a student, you are never denied breakfast. You are never denied lunch...It doesn’t matter how much you owe us, you still get one,” Campbell said.

Free or reduced lunch and breakfast are provided to DPS families who meet specific income requirements and enroll in the National School Lunch Program, Empen said.

If a family fills out that form and qualifies for the program, Campbell said, the district would wipe out any outstanding balances that might be on their lunch account.

“Our secretaries do an amazing job of reaching out and connecting with families to let them know what opportunities are out there. If it’s a temporary struggle, if it’s a permanent struggle, they work very closely with families to try to figure out what is the best option for them,” Empen said.

Board member Jon Wadsworth pointed out that it does cost the district to pay those employees for putting in the work to coordinate the NSLP applications, but Campbell said, “it’s not $130,000.”

From an accounting perspective, those individuals are already being paid and $130,000 is just the cost of the meals so “I’m not taking that into consideration, nor do I think we would really want to,” Campbell said.

“For me, there’s a lot of value in simplicity, and … it’s easier to just have free lunch and do it and forget about it, but $130,000 is not junk change," Wadsworth said.

Wadsworth and board president Linda Wegner agreed that if it does make sense in the future they would consider implementing it.

For now, “we go with the status quo,” Campbell said.