DEARBORN — The Dearborn Public School District will continue to offer all K-12 students free breakfast and lunch on school days.

Despite many other districts being forced to start charging students for breakfast and lunch again, Dearborn is able to use the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) under the National School Lunch Program to continue to provide free meals to the majority of students.

The School Lunch Program allows schools to offer free or reduced priced meals to students who qualify based on household income. However, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Agriculture allowed all public schools to offer free meals to all students. That waiver expired over the summer.

Last year, Dearborn Public Schools provided more than 2.2 million lunches to students and more than 721,000 breakfasts. 

With family income being used as a factor for the district in many federal and state funding programs, the district is asking that all families to still complete a family income survey. Among the funding related to family income, the district is expecting to receive $16 million in state funds for at-risk students and $12.5 million in federal Title 1 dollars.

The menus are posted for each school through the Nutrislice app and the website at www.dearbornschools.nutrislice.com/menu. The system also shows nutritional information and any potential allergens for each dish. All district meals are nut free and halal.

“We are excited to be gearing up for another year of serving our students healthy, appetizing meals,” Jeff Murphy, director of food service, said. “And we are grateful that we can again offer free lunch and breakfast to our students.”