Brainerd Public Schools Going Back to Paid Meal System This Fall

After feeding students through boxed lunches during the COVID-19 pandemic, this fall Brainerd Public Schools will return to a paid meal system.

In 2020 at the start of the pandemic, the Brainerd School District had to come up with a way to keep kids fed during the school year. While kids were at home during remote learning, the school board decided that the best way to feed students was with boxed lunches.

Now, the district will go back to a paid meal system, something that hasn’t been the case for a couple of years. In late June, the federal Keep Kids Fed Act passed into law, which gives an additional 40 cents to school lunches and 15 cents to breakfast. With the state of Minnesota also increasing rates of reimbursement for meals, Brainerd Public Schools Food Services is estimating that if participation returns to what it was before the pandemic started, the district would receive an additional $300,000 in reimbursement for lunches.

“So that with an additional stockpile of food due to a late warehouse delivery for commodities, I feel like we are OK to keep the prices the same for families,” said Alyssa Thompson, district food services director, at a school board meeting this month. “I was very cognizant of inflation to families and that we’re going back to paid meals, and so I don’t want that impact to be on the families while maintaining a budget in the food service department, and I’m confident that we won’t exceed our food budget this year with that additional reimbursement.”

It’s also been estimated that there would be an additional $80,000 in reimbursement for school breakfasts.