Navigating the Application Process for Free and Reduced Meals: Guidance from Superintendent Dr. Haug and Mrs. Wagner

Confused about how to apply for free and reduced meals in schools? Get ready to gain valuable insights as Superintendent of Schools at Jefferson, David Haug, and Food Service Director, Mrs. Donica Wagner, guide you through the process. We explore the recent financial changes affecting eligibility, and how the number of household members plays a significant role in the application. We also remind listeners that the deadline for this year's application, if you were eligible last year, is looming on September 30th.

In the second half of our engaging chat, we delve into the nitty-gritty of the essential paperwork, revealing where to get it and how to fill it out accurately. Mrs. Wagner provides clarity on what to do if your financial status changes during the year. She affirms that a new form can be submitted at any point, ensuring you are never left in the lurch. Lastly, we discuss the district's strategy to best allocate resources by requesting families to fill out a form before accounts are reimbursed with outside donations. Tune in to decode the process of applying for free and reduced meals, and learn how to navigate it for your family's benefit.

Transcript

David Haug: 0:01

I'm David Haug, Superintendent of Schools at Jefferson, R-7. I'm joined with our Food Service Director, Mrs. Donica Wagner. Donica and I have had a great pleasure working together for many years at the high school and we both transitioned to new roles last year. Really, this is targeted to a specific audience in this regard to free and reduced meals and kind of that how-to process and why it's important to turn those materials in First of all, if you were Mrs. Wagner, if you were free reduced last year, you still are eligible for that to start the year. When does that end?

Donica Wagner: 0:42

On September 30th it will roll over to give us time to get your application in and get it processed, and then you have until September 30th for that current eligibility.

David Haug: 0:51

So if you were eligible last year and you've not completed your form, you have until September 30th to turn that in. We recommend you do that as early as you can because we'll talk about some other things associated with this as well. I know the financial kind of go through the we were kind of surprised to see the financial changes to this and this will be posted for our district to see and probably in this podcast as well if you're watching the video version. But kind of go through what you saw when you opened this up.

Donica Wagner: 1:25

I it just with the economy and everybody right now. They have changed, actually lowered the income eligibility to where a family of four can only make a certain amount of money to apply for free and a certain amount of money to apply for reduced meals. That's why it's so important for registration in Infinite Campus that you put how many members are in your household, because the certain amount of members also if you just recently had a new baby in the house, that will help because there's more mouths to be fed so that will also put you in a different category.

David Haug: 2:03

And so Donica has to work closely with auditors is where some of this stem from. So sometimes you have to be a little patient with us because you may get a phone call back, and she's alluding to. What we saw last year is that what was in Infinite Campus did not necessarily match the form, and so if we need to clean that up either way, we will absolutely do that. So if you get a call back from Mrs. Wagner, just know that's where that's coming from. You've got something on the form and it's a very tight process for her. It's not easy. She does a great job with it, so please don't take offense if she calls you. It may be something very simple and something may not be lying in Infinite Campus to the form. Where are the forms available?

Donica Wagner: 2:43

The forms are available in any school office. We can email the form to them as well, but the school secretaries have access to those.

David Haug: 2:51

So you're building offices secretaries. If you email them, they have the hard copies of the forms in there and those forms do need to be returned as soon as possible. If you have been receiving the frame reduced and hope to continue that, please get those forms in if you've not done so. Last thing I want to talk about is somebody's financial status changes, say November. What are the options?

Donica Wagner: 3:17

Fill out a new form any time throughout the year. There are hardships in your family. Just fill out a new form, send it back in and we'll reprocess it and see where we stand with it.

David Haug: 3:27

So I think the way to look at that is that it is sort of alive, in real time view of your finances and, to put it quite bluntly, that if that changes throughout the year and you believe you may qualify to help out your situation, please send us that form in, get that to Donica and we get that entered and then we can move forward with that. One last thing I wanted to add is that we've been so blessed with so many great donors in this district that have helped us out with overdue accounts. The one thing we do ask we've paid those off without really questioning anything. I do know that one of the messages that Mrs. Wagner and I worked on last year we are looking to see if the form has been filled out in order to pay off any accounts from an outside donation. The reason we're doing that is we just want to be as smart with our resources if we can.

David Haug: 4:18

If a family qualifies and hasn't turned the form in, that money can be used to another family and that's really where it's coming from. Please know it's coming from a good place. We want to honor those who inspect, those who are donating the money, that we are doing the very best we can to get those resources. So if you're, if you're are in need for some lunch help, we do have those opportunities outside of this from our local donors, but we do ask that a form be filled out before we reimburse those accounts. Wagner, anything else.

Donica Wagner: 4:48

I would just like to say that while filling out your form, there are some important parts that we have to have filled out.

Donica Wagner: 4:57

Make sure, like I said, yes, we need your students that we have in the building, but if you have any children in the household as a member of the household, please still include those in the top portion of members of the household.

Donica Wagner: 5:10

And then, when you are doing your income portion, just make sure that you put the people in the household that are making the income part of it Any member in the household that you're including in your income portion. And then also, if your child is currently on the SNAP or any type of assistance and you have a case number, that is very important that you put that case number in there, because those are direct free students for us. So, and then at the bottom, I do have to have a signature. We've been sending a lot of applications home because it's an incomplete form if we don't have the signature. And also the date. If you fill out your application on September the 2nd and gave it to your student to bring to school and they left it in their backpack, we can backdate it to that date. So their eligibility starts on that date, so make sure that that date is on there as well.

David Haug: 6:04

So just a quick summary as many people as you have in your household household is legitimate, whether they're in school or not, whether you're supporting them or not. And also to you know, I know I know I am sometimes with filling out forms that I kind of just want to get through it, but if you did the registration this summer, you can request sort of that sheet from your building secretary. They will send it to you to actually who's listed in your household. So you might be able to kind of take care of that ahead of time if you need that information and forgot who exactly is listed in there. So in summary, these need to be done to continue services through October 1st.

David Haug: 6:39

If you are currently receiving services and have not done one, the forms are either available we can email them to you or hard copies in the office. They need to match the infinite campus information and you can update this at any time. And if you receive a call from Donica, please know that it is from a good place in order to try to streamline this process and get it done as quickly as possible, because sometimes they just don't match. It's okay, we can fix it on either end. Thank you.

Donica Wagner: 7:05

Yeah, thank you.

David Haug: 7:06

We appreciate all you do and we know our kids eat here and it's a great day every time lunch hits. Thank you.