{"id":3965,"date":"2025-07-24T18:40:53","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T22:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2025-07-24T18:40:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T22:40:53","slug":"free-reduced-lunch-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/free-reduced-lunch-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Free\/Reduced Lunch Application"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0<\/span><\/span>25-26 School Year Meal Policy & Pricing Update\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The updated 25-26 Meal Policy and Prices are below. They are reviewed annually to ensure they meet USDA pricing guidelines. CEP schools offer free meals to all students; however, students must have a positive cafeteria account balance to purchase a la carte items.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Breakfast (K-12): <\/b>Free for all students\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Elementary (K\u20135) Lunch: <\/b>Only $2.50\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Middle & High (6\u201312) Lunch: <\/b>Just $2.75\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Adult Breakfast: <\/b>$4.00\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Adult Lunch: <\/b>$5.00\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

UPDATED: <\/b>St. Lucie Public Schools Meal Charging Policy\/Procedure\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All St. Lucie Public Schools must adhere to the Meal Charging Policy set forth by the USDA. All students who qualify for a free meal benefit will not be denied a meal even if there are meal charges on the account. Students\u2019 accounts can accrue up to $25.00 of charges for reimbursable meals only. No \u00e0 la carte items are permitted to be charged. No adults are allowed to charge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Students are allowed to charge up to $25.00 for receiving a reimbursable meal. The students will receive the same school lunch as other students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Students who have accrued a negative balance will receive notification of charges through the district communication system, written notification, and\/or a phone call from the school. Parents will be encouraged to make payments through either our online prepayment system or in the cafeteria.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Households will continue to receive notification of charges until the charges are paid in full. Notifications will be sent through the district communication system twice a week.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Up to three courtesy meals will be offered to students who have maximized their charge limit. A courtesy meal consists of a cheese sandwich, a vegetable, a fruit, and low-fat white milk. The school meals program will maintain a list of students who receive or refuse a courtesy meal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. If a pattern of receiving courtesy meals is evident, the Child Nutrition Services Department will attempt to discuss the issue with the parent or guardian to encourage them to complete a free and reduced meal application. If the practice continues and the parents\/guardians remain unresponsive, the Child Nutrition Services Department will initiate a plan for Student Services to contact the household to complete a meal application for the student and determine if the student is known to be eligible for free or reduced meals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Any time there is an uncollected balance in a student\u2019s meal account, the student will be prevented from purchasing \u00e0 la carte items.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Any unpaid balance on a student\u2019s account will be carried over from year to year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

8. The parent is responsible for the uncollected balance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a025-26 School Year Meal Policy & Pricing Update\u00a0 The updated 25-26 Meal Policy and Prices are below. They are reviewed annually to ensure they meet USDA pricing guidelines. CEP schools offer free meals to all students; however, students must have a positive cafeteria account balance to purchase a la carte items.\u00a0 \u2022 Breakfast (K-12): Free…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1324,"featured_media":3966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-1","description-off"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 12:15:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3969,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions\/3969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schools.stlucie.k12.fl.us\/vge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}