{"id":13556,"date":"2024-09-12T18:36:10","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=13556"},"modified":"2024-09-12T18:37:07","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:37:07","slug":"tps-now-offers-free-breakfast-and-lunch-to-all-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/12\/tps-now-offers-free-breakfast-and-lunch-to-all-students\/","title":{"rendered":"TPS Now Offers Free Breakfast and Lunch to All Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Truth Staff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Due to changes by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to the qualifications for students to receive free and reduced priced meals, Toledo Public Schools now offers free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students in the district.<\/p>\n

This school year, a handful of TPS schools, including Bowsher and Start high schools, were able to add free breakfast and lunch program for all their students ensuring that the entire TPS student body now have the same free meal privileges.<\/p>\n

During a visit to Bowsher High School at lunchtime, Carrie Kolodziejczyk, TPS senior director of Food Service and Child Nutrition, described the changes and benefits for the student body.<\/p>\n

\"\"There have always been eligibility requirements, she noted, for students to receive free meals. Prior to 2024, income eligibility held sway and if the majority of students in a particular school were income-eligible for free meals, the entire school was therefore eligible.<\/p>\n

At the start of 2024, the Department of Education and Workforce changed the eligibility requirements and held that qualifiers for Medicaid were eligible for free meals. The majority of families in the Toledo district qualified for Medicaid and that means that every student now qualifies.<\/p>\n

According to Kolodziejczyk, TPS could not start the program last year in the middle of the academic year, they had to wait until the start of the school year.<\/p>\n

Bowsher has a student body of around 800 and now approximately 450 students avail themselves of a menu that, for lunch, includes a choice of one of four entrees or some precooked stored items if the daily offerings do not entice them. They can also select four side items, including a salad bar.<\/p>\n

\"\"The entr\u00e9e items change daily, said Bowsher cafeteria supervisor Linda Tandler. This past Thursday selections were barbecued chicken sandwiches, Vito\u2019s pizza, spicy chicken tenders or plain chicken tenders.<\/p>\n

The cafeteria is prepared for alternative requests such as vegetarian, offering meal options last Thursday such as the salad bar and a non-meat pizza entr\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

Approximately 150 students avail themselves of the free breakfast at the school noted both Tandler and Kolodziejczyk. \u201cScience tells us that high school students are not hungry early in the morning like younger [students],\u201d said Kolodziejczyk, explaining the discrepancy in the meal counts.<\/p>\n

In addition to Bowsher and Start high schools, other schools which are offering all students free breakfast and lunch starting this academic year are Elmhurst, Beverly and Grove Patterson elementary schools and magnet schools such as Toledo Technology Academy, Toledo Early College High School, the Aviation Center and the Natural Science Technology Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Truth Staff Due to changes by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to the qualifications for students to receive free and reduced priced meals, Toledo Public Schools now offers free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students in the district. This school year, a handful of TPS schools, including Bowsher and Start high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[248],"class_list":["post-13556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13561,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556\/revisions\/13561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13556"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=13556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}