Meal Applications
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Every Palms family should turn in a Meal Application. It's important! |
One of the most important actions you can take to help your children and help the educational programs at Palms Middle School is to submit an LAUSD Meal Application at the start of school each year.
- For you: Your children may be eligible for free or reduced-price meals at school. Many people are surprised to learn that they qualify. Federal money is allocated for this purpose and you should get your share.
- For Palms: Palms depends on funds provided by the federal Title I program and our Title I funding depends on the percentage of accepted Meal Applications. If all Palms families apply we'll meet the threshold (50%) and receive these funds. If eligible families do not apply, we can miss the threshold (see history below).
- For your family: Applying may also make your children eligible for future Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) benefits, which provide food-purchase assistance to hard-hit U.S. families. See details.
More than 50% of Palms students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, but we don't receive the resulting funding unless we can show it.
We don't know in advance what formula the school district will use to determine eligibility, so ALL Palms families should submit a meal application, no matter what their family income is.
Meal Applications
Submit applications after July 1st each year.
Start at: www.myschoolapps.com/Home/PickDistrict.
Where the site asks for the Zip Code, enter 90017.
Applications are still accepted after the deadline but won't count toward our Title I Eligibility.
How to Apply
The application process is simple. Either apply by mail or apply online.
Apply by mail: You should have already received a Meal Application in the mail. If you did, fill it out and mail it in. If you lost it or threw it out without applying, get another form from the Main Office or the Student Services Office (see campus map). Fill it out and mail it in. Don't submit the sample applications (see below), since real applications from Palms have a unique code number.
Apply online: Go to My School Apps and enter Zip Code 90017.
Tips:
- Applications are per family/household. You do not need to submit an application for each student or each school.
- You will need the grades and dates of birth for each student and income information for each family member who earns income.
- You can use a home computer, library or other public computer, or a smart phone or tablet to apply online.
- LAUSD will determine if you qualify. Even if you consider yourself "middle class" your family may qualify. For example, families earning $40,000 per year, $50,000 per year, $60,000 per year, or more can qualify under the eligibility guidelines.
- If you have questions, ask our Title I Coordinator.
- If you aren't sure whether or not you turned in the application, turn one in. LAUSD will weed out any duplicate applications. If you submit multiple applications giving different family information then LAUSD may ask you to verify the information that you provided and that can delay their processing, so be careful to fill in the exact same information each time.
Completely free meals are provided to:
- foster children
- children in households receiving Food Stamps
- children in households in the Family Investment Program (FIP)
- children in households in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) program
- children in households with income below limits ln the Federal Income Guidelines
We Depend on Meal Applications for Title I Funding!
When the Los Angeles Board of Education changed the rules that determined which schools qualified for Title I funds in 2011, Palms fell into the pool of 23 schools that lost their funding, even though we had enough eligible families. That's because we stopped reminding families to submit Meal Applications after we thought we had enough qualifying families on the record. Oops!
That year we lost our tutoring, after-school sports, and other programs supported by those funds, and regained only a fraction of it back after a vigorous campaign by parents.
If every Palms family had submitted a Meal Application in 2011-2012 then we would have met the requirements and retained our Title I funding. Please submit a Meal Application each year and help us get our fair share of Title I federal funding!
For the 2019-2020 school year. Palms qualified for TItle I funding based on the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced-priced meals, with 58.2% of students eligible. See the Title I page for a chart showing our qualification history.
Multiple Applications
If you received multiple Meal Application forms, mail one with your application and drop the spare copy off at the Main Office or Student Services Office. LAUSD limited the number of printed forms we received and we need the spares!
Sample Meal Applications
Do not submit these sample applications. Real application from Palms have a unique code number.
