April Fruge (supervisor for School Food Services) informed Allen Parish School Board members at Monday’s meeting, “All schools will eat free.”
She said students will receive free breakfast and lunch from August 12, 2021, to May 24, 2022 through the summer feeding program known as SSO (Seamless Summer Option) which encourages students to receive free meals at their school sites. Fruge said the goal is to increase student participation in the program while focusing on nutritional meals. She also has some leeway to revamp menus to encourage students to participate in the meal program since the parish’s numbers on daily participation were not great last year.
She said daily participation rates for the 2020-21 school year were 29.37 percent for breakfast and 49.71 percent for lunch. Fruge said last school year the parish served 483,957 students – 179,733 breakfast meals and 304,224 lunch meals. A total of 20,234 adult meals were served for a total of 504,191 meals.
“Our goal is to encourage all Allen Parish students at each of our schools to visit our cafeterias and eat healthy with tasty breakfast and lunch meals for free during the 2021-2022 school year.”
Depending on which school students attend, parents will have to complete a form:
•Yellow forms seeking household income surveys will be utilized for students in CEP schools (Oakdale Elementary, Oakdale Middle, Oakdale High, Oberlin Elementary, Oberlin High and Reeves).
•Students in Non-CEP schools (Elizabeth, Fairview, Kinder Elementary, Kinder Middle and Kinder High) will complete the blue form seeking information for household meal applications.
According to Fruge, yellow forms will be in paper version only, and blue forms should be on the parish’s website (www.allen.k12.la.us) prior to the start of school. She said the paperwork is necessary in accordance with the federal funding guidelines.
For the rest of the calendar year, the parish will receive $2.24 per breakfast meal and $3.91 per lunch served. In January, the federal government will adjust those rates. When the board inquired how this affected our funding, Tammi Ritchie (Finance Director) said the district was doing okay and believed this year’s program would do even better financially.
Kenney Courville (supervisor for CW&A, Transportation and Special Services) and Eric Cole (supervisor for Maintenance) updated the board on ongoing maintenance and construction projects in the parish. Courville said the parish’s maintenance was affected by Hurricane Laura after a lot of damage was reported in the schools. He said the goal was to stay ahead and replace items before a band-aid had to be used in order to save the parish money in the long run. He commended Cole and his staff for the work they have done as the district works with the insurance company and makes repairs.
Courville said the projects in Kinder should be wrapping up soon. The cafeteria in Oberlin is being renovated. The asphalt in front of Oakdale Elementary is being replaced to alleviate traffic congestion in that area. Reeves’ roof will be replaced as well as Kinder Elementary and Kinder High.
Power was shut off at Oakdale High on Monday at 10 a.m. It should take approximately a week to finish that part of the electrical system. Concrete was scheduled to be poured on Wednesday if there was no rain. On Friday, the gear switch (electrical box) should be replaced and power returned. He said the boilers were done last week and a pipe needs to be insulated. Floors in the Oberlin cafeteria and Fairview auditorium should be poured soon – maybe next week. Installation of cameras at Oakdale Middle should be completed in all classrooms. The school’s old field house was torn down. The district wants to pour concrete and hope to put a pavilion over the students. They are also working on some drainage issues.
