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Durham Public Schools has qualified for the second year of the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP.
When enough students are directly certified for free meal benefits, the entire school qualifies for the CEP option, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The school district is among a few in the state with county-wide participation.
School officials stated that the county qualified due to the percentage of students using SNAP, food benefits, and facing homelessness.
Parents aren’t required to fill out applications for the free or reduced-priced meals.
Each student can have one breakfast and a lunch at no cost to the family each day.
County health and school officials say they’re thankful this is one less thing for struggling families to worry about, and students can focus less on hunger and more on their schoolwork.
“It’s important for people to understand this isn’t just about free lunch for kids. It’s about taking care of their emotional needs,” James Keaton, director of school nutrition services for Durham Public Schools, said. “It’s taking care of the family. It’s being able to take care of the whole community. And it just looks good for people to be able to say, ‘We care enough about the kids to do what’s right.’”
And for Keaton, this issue hits even closer to home, as he says he, too, benefited from a similar program.
“It’s part of my past. I was one of the free reduced kids,“ Keaton said. “When I was a kid, they would actually put you out of your classroom 30 minutes before lunch, and we would eat our lunch, and then all the other kids, while they were eating lunch, we had to scrape trays, wash tables, empty milk cartons. We had to earn our lunch.”
He said it’s a stigma no child should have to deal with, and with this program, there’s no way to single any one student out.
“With a lot of regulations changing, we’re hoping that CEP is one of the things that doesn’t get cut very deeply because it’s so important for kids to have those meals,” he said.
If nothing changes from a funding standpoint, he said the program is expected to run through 2030.
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Daniel Gray
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