Lafayette School System Changing Meal Distribution

The Lafayette Parish School System has made an announcement about changes to the school meal program for students.

With the spread of Covid-19, there have many daily changes to everyone's routines.

For those students who receive their meals from the Lafayette Parish School System, another change is coming.

The Lafayette Parish School System will now be using a program called Meals-To-You.

This program is now going to be used to help students get the nutrition that they need, but there is action that is needed by the parent/guardian of each student in order for them to get access to this much needed resource.

The program is a collaboration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Baylor University Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty and the Louisiana Department of Education.

So, what will be provided to your children? Each of the students will qualify for a box of ten meals that are what officials say are kid-friendly.

Another benefit of this food is that it is designed to be shelf-stable, and it's easy to prepare according to information from Lafayette Parish School System Spokeswoman Allison Dickerson.

One of the big questions about this new way of doing things is who will be able to make use of this service are the following:

Students who receive reduced lunch
Students who receive free lunch
Any student that goes to a school that has the Community Eligibility Provisions Program

So, how do you know if your child qualifies, or if you are not sure, you can click here to find out more information.

For moms and dads along with caretakers, you need to opt-in to the program to get this going for your kids, so you need to click here.

The biggest thing for parents/guardians to know, if your child/children qualify for the program, it is a free program.

Also another important factor about this program to know is that if your child goes to a school that participates in the Community Eligibility Program, those parents/guardians should click here.

There are several items of information that must be provided, and one of the big things is your child's student ID number. So, how do I find that number? Dickerson says you can find the number by looking at the child Lafayette Parish School system assigned google gmail account, and the seven-digit number is right in the student's username. You can also find the seven-digit number by going to the "Sidno" portion of the Parent Portal, and it's right on the home page.

Dickerson says make sure that you are applying by this Wednesday, April 1, 2020.

She adds that we need to be paying attention to the Governor's order to stay at home, so they are instituting this new program and suspending the other "Grab and Go" program where you could bring your child to the school location. That is being suspended for the next week to ten days, so please be aware that you need to sign your student up for this new program asap. One important thing to note, they will have a grace period while they are signing up. If you need a meal you can still go there during the transition to the new system call the Meals-To-You program.

If you still need to go before you register, the following sites will be open from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. starting this Monday, which is March 30: