Pioneer included in school meal program update

The Carson City School District’s Nutrition Services program returns to paid free and reduced lunch status for the 2024-25 school year.

But while the U.S. Department of Agriculture previously announced it would expand its Community Eligibility Provision program to 3,000 school districts in high-need areas to decrease costs for families and distribute reimbursements to schools, not all CCSD campuses could qualify.

The district had been informed this year that Al Seeliger Elementary, Eagle Valley Middle and Carson High schools were not CEP eligible. On Tuesday this week, Director of Nutrition Services Elizabeth Martinez said Pioneer Academy’s meals also will fall under Carson High’s meal plan after plans previously were announced of the school’s restructure to make it an alternative site of Carson.

“Pioneer is going to be the biggest transition,” Martinez said. “I don’t know the last time anybody paid for meals at Pioneer. We didn’t want to do (the cost increase), but we had to.”

Pioneer’s students will have a Linq account and be able to deposit or reload meal accounts and monitor balances and scan their identification cards for breakfast or lunch.

“They’ll have to go through the register now instead of being counted,” she said. “We’ll have a second person at Pioneer running a register, and we won’t be doing the second-chance breakfast, at least not at first.”

Kitchen staff members will provide a cart with breakfast items and go around to those students who did not have an opportunity early in Pioneer’s schedule to eat breakfast before their classes, Martinez said. She said she would wait on feedback later to decide if this second-chance breakfast option should be renewed.

In March, it was announced families would be asked to apply for free and reduced meals with state funding ending as of May 30. Martinez has looked to legislative solutions to extend investments to keep feeding all students. She called it “financial suicide” to extend the CEP eligibility to Seeliger, Eagle Valley and Carson High and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to grant them the status, she said, especially as it applies to Pioneer’s case under Carson High’s name for submitting free and reduced lunch applications reimbursements.

“Even though we have two high schools, we only have one high school (to submit for),” she said. “It’s a little bit of a change, and it’s going to take some getting used to.”

Martinez has attended the School Nutrition Association’s Legislative Action Conference and met with national nutrition specialists as an advocate for the district and state on legislative and local issues and plans to do so again. She hopes to see increased federal funding for school meals.

For the three schools — Seeliger, Eagle Valley and Carson High — that did lose their CEP eligibility and who comprise about half the district’s student population, it weighs on her that they’re not getting reimbursed to offer free meals. She maintains her stance on the importance of ensuring all students receive regular access to nutritious meals at schools and easing burdens for families.

“It’s just killing me,” she said.