Most Morgan County schools eligible for free meals

Students in Morgan County Schools, with the exception of Berkeley Springs High School students, will have the opportunity to eat free breakfast and lunch this year at school.

These schools re participating in a pilot program called the Community Eligibility Option (CEO).
Primary goal of this program is to make available to a larger percentage of the student population healthy nutritious meals which are provided through the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs. As a pilot program, student participation is the key to its success.

If at least 40 percent of a school’s students are directly-certified for free meal benefits, the entire school qualified for this program. Morgan County Schools eligible to participate are: Greenwood Elementary, Paw Paw Schools, Pleasant View Elementary, Widmyer Elementary, Warm Springs Intermediate and Warm Springs Middle. The program allows the school system to feed nearly 2,230 students each day at no cost to the families.

West Virginia is one of only four states to be selected to participate in the CEO for the 2013 school year. West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) initiated a Universal Free Meals pilot last year which served eight counties - Cabell, Clay, Fayette, Gilmer, Lincoln, Mason, McDowell and Mingo. All of those counties saw increases in the number of students eating breakfast and lunch because of this initiative. The CEO allows this initiative to continue and to be expanded to other counties.

Thirty-five of 54 eligible county school systems throughout the state have decided to participate in the CEO. Approximately 280 schools will participate reaching nearly 90,000 public school students.

The CEO was enacted as a results of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act and provides universal meal service to children in high poverty areas. This is the second year for the option and it provides an alternative to collecting, approving and verifying household eligibility applications for free and reduced price eligible students in high poverty Local Education Agencies (LEA).