Students in some area schools will continue to receive free breakfast and lunch based on poverty levels across the district, but Lehighton Area School District will not be among the group offering that benefit in 2022-23.

The “Community Eligibility Provision” of the National School Breakfast and National School Lunch programs allows districts with 40% or more of its student population directly certified as eligible for free meals to offer them at no cost. However districts would not receive full federal reimbursement for all students, meaning they would need to pick up a portion of the tab.

“We looked into it and we would essentially need about 55% of our students to be directly certified by the state for free meals before we would get to a point where we break even,” Lehighton Business Manager Edward Rarick said during a meeting Monday night. “The Nutrition Group ran the numbers for us and if we were to offer the free meals to everyone this year, we would have a shortfall of around $242,000.”

According to a spreadsheet on the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Lehighton’s “identified student percentage” for 2022-23 stands at 45.62%. That is calculated by taking the number of identified students, divided by the total number of enrolled students with access to National School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs, multiplied by 100.

Area districts such as Panther Valley and Northern Lehigh have already announced they will be offering free meals to all students based on the “Community Eligibility Provision.”

“I have talked to some other districts and they told me their numbers have increased dramatically over the past few years to be able to qualify,” Rarick said.

Getting to the point where offering free meals districtwide would be revenue neutral is a double-edged sword, directors acknowledged Monday.

“Let’s hope we never get to higher numbers,” Director Barbara Bowes said. “We don’t want anyone else to become a low-income family.”

Lehighton families meeting the income guidelines can still submit a free or reduced lunch application, found at https://bit.ly/3crbADv, in order to avoid paying full price for meals.

A full list of income guidelines is available at https://bit.ly/3cgcZN2, but, for example, a family of three with an annual income of $29,939 or less would qualify for free meals, while those making between $29,940 and $42,606 would qualify for a reduced lunch rate of no more than 40 cents. For a family of four, the maximum annual income to receive the free lunch benefit is $36,075, while the reduced price benefit would be available if the family’s income was between $36,076 and $51,338.

For those paying full price, Lehighton voted last month to keep meal prices the same as they were before the pandemic in 2020. Breakfast will cost an elementary student $1, a secondary student $1.30, and an adult $1.90. Lunch will cost an elementary student $2.50, a secondary student $2.80 and an adult $4.