The new lunch program, Opaa!, kicked off the year with a great start. More recently, however, an issue has arisen during lunch. Some students have been told to remove food from their trays.

Last year’s lunch program offered students and staff free breakfast and lunch if they just ordered the main. With Opaa!, at first this was not the case. It only took a few days for this to change though.

“Our school corporation is operating a program called Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) which allows each student to qualify for one free breakfast and lunch per day. We qualify for this program because our school corporation had 40% or more students who were directly certified to receive free meals last school year,” said Corporation Treasurer Courtney Brown.

With the change during lunch and breakfast, students and staff could get the main meal for free. These meals change each day, and can all be seen on the Opaa! website and app. If students wish to have more than the main meal for lunch, they will get charged for it. Depending on the amount of food they add determines how much money they will have to pay. It is their own responsibility to make sure that they can afford what they are trying to eat for lunch and breakfast that day.

“Students are at liberty to purchase additional items at a cost. When the student makes all their selections and goes to check out with the cashier, if the student doesn’t have the funds or if their account is overdrawn by $25 or more they have no choice but to take the additional goods off the tray,” said Principal Ed Wagner.

Now that the issue is brought out into view, the solution can be as well. Students have two options on what to do. They can either just get the main meal for free or pay their tab and deposit money into their lunch accounts at the front office.