It will cost Brainerd School District parents another nickel per child per school lunch for this coming school year.
The Brainerd School Board Monday, July 16, approved a 5 cent increase to its lunch prices for the 2018-19 school year. School breakfast, adult meals and milk prices will not change.
Food Services Director Alissa Thompson said the national average school lunch price is $2.92. Brainerd's 5 cent increase will bring its lunch to $2.75 for elementary school students-first through fourth grades-and $2.85 for secondary school students in sixth through 12th grades.
Thompson said the 2 percent recommended increase was based on its weighted average meal price of $2.76 or $2.70 for elementary and $2.80 for secondary. With 350,000 paid meals, the impact to the budget with the increase would be $17,500.
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Meal prices for 2018-19
- Elementary schools-first through fourth grade: $1.75 for breakfast and $2.75 for lunch.
- Secondary school-fifth through 12th grade: $1.75 for breakfast and $2.85 for lunch.
- Adults: $2.80 for breakfast and $4.10 for lunch.
- Kindergarten: free breakfast and $2.75 for lunch.
- Extra milk: 45 cents.
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Thompson stated in her presentation the district continues to promote its breakfast program, which is growing. However, the district saw a 1 percent decrease in overall breakfast participation last school year and a 1 percent decrease in paid breakfast.
"Comparing breakfast and lunch pricing from neighboring school districts our breakfast pricing is competitive," Thompson stated. "Based off both the decrease in participation and the price comparison it is the recommendation to the board to leave breakfast pricing unchanged. It is also the recommendation to the board to leave adult meal pricing unchanged."
Thompson said the minimum pricing requirement for adult meals is $1.65 for breakfast and $3.65 for lunch. She said Brainerd Food Service adult meal pricing is consistent with other school districts and is above the mandatory minimums at $2.80 for breakfast and $4.10 for lunch.
In the 2017-18 school year, there was 248,441 breakfast meals served and 711,872 lunch meals served. At the elementary level, 121,353 meals were free, 51,959 meals paid at a reduced price and 136,413 were paid in full last school year. At the secondary level, there were 199,599 meals paid in full last school year.
In other food services business, the school board awarded Pan-O-Gold as its vendor for bread. Pricing includes a loaf of white whole grain sandwich bread for $1.35.
Thompson stated in her presentation document the larger schools still bake their own bread, buns, hoagie rolls, dinner rolls, french bread and breakfast items. The Brainerd High School north campus makes sub buns from scratch every Friday and produces homemade banana bread/muffin bread for breakfast and a variety of rolls and bread items for the salad line daily.
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