School lunch prices to rise a nickel

Lunch prices will increase 5 cents for all St. Mary public school students paying full price in the 2014-15 school year, increasing the cost to families by $8.85 annually.
Sixth through 12th grade students will pay $1.85 for lunch, while kindergarteners through fifth graders will pay $1.60 next year.
It will cost $327.45 to feed a student in sixth through 12th grades annually and $283.20 to feed kindergarteners through fifth graders. But, if parents paid the full cost of $4 for the average meal, they would be paying more than $700 annually.
These numbers do not include breakfast prices, which will remain at 75 cents for the coming school year.
The St. Mary Parish School Board voted Thursday night to make the change based on federal subsidies. The school system has increased the lunch meal price by 10 cents each school year since 2011-12 to bring the average price charged for paid lunches closer to the national reimbursement rate, which changes every year, according to School Food Service Supervisor Mary Grimm-Howard.
For the 2013-14 fiscal year, the school food service budget is $6 million. Of that, food and commodity costs are a combined $2.25 million, or 37 percent of the total budget.
The Paid Lunch Equity provision of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 requires school food authorities to ensure each year that sufficient funds are paid to the school food service account for full-paid student lunches.
“It hasn’t totally put us to the point where our meal cost and what we charge is equal, but (the increase) met the guideline we had to follow,” Grimm-Howard said this morning.
She said that while the government allows for a 10 cent increase annually, the formula used to calculate what the increase should or can be showed that St. Mary Parish only needed to increase the price 5 cents.
The point of the increase is to get the school system in a position where it doesn’t have to supplement the cost of food, but with inflation increasing that cost, “it seems like we’re kind of chasing that figure every year,” Grimm-Howard said.
In other action during Thursday’s meeting, the board:
—Approved four disciplinary measures including a March 13 incident in which a teacher had inappropriate physical contact with a student, two days suspended without pay; a bus driver misused a cellphone while driving, three days suspended without pay; an inappropriate action involving a teacher and student on March 19, 10 days suspended without pay; and the termination of a secretary for insubordination and errors processing various personnel forms.
—Set numerous committee meetings including the annual “wish list” maintenance meetings. For the wish lists, District 1 meets May 1 at 1 p.m.; District 2, May 7, 1 p.m.; and District 3, May 1, 3 p.m. Also, the board scheduled another health insurance workshop for April 29 at 4 p.m. and will meet June 17 at 1:30 p.m. to sell $21 million in bonds for the Fifth Ward Special School District No. 1, funding the replacement of Patterson Junior High School and construction of a new multi-purpose building at Hattie Watts Elementary.
—Learned retirements have been announced by Sylvia Lockett, principal at Hernandez Elementary; Debra Torline, assistant principal at Berwick Junior; and Jacquelyn Davis, guidance counselor at Franklin Junior. With the recent announcement of Teresa Bagwell as assistant superintendent, her post as principal at Berwick Junior High is open as well.
—Authorize its superintendent to act on behalf of the board in the sale of the former Crowell Gym property to the City of Franklin. The gym was appraised at $144,500, but needs roughly $100,000 in repairs. It will be sold for $48,000. Meanwhile, the sale of the Crowell Cafeteria-Senior Center building will be to the highest bidder over the $51,600 appraisal.