The percentage of Evanston students who qualify for free or reduced lunches is slightly below the national average, which for the first time is more than half of all public school students.

A study released by the Southern Education Foundation this month showed that 51 percent of public school children nationally qualify for lunch price reductions. Twenty-one states, including Illinois, had 50 percent or more public school attendees qualifying in 2013. Data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, which was cited in the study, shows a steady growth in the percentage of low-income children in public schools during the past several decades.

According to Evanston/Skokie School District 65’s Opening of Schools Report, 38 percent of the district’s students were low-income in the 2013-14 academic year. Of the 7,667 total students enrolled in District 65 schools that year, 2,323 qualified for free lunches and an additional 374 were eligible for lunches at a reduced cost.

District 65 Superintendent Paul Goren estimated that this year around 40 percent of students in his district qualified for free or reduced lunches. A free lunch is provided if a student is at a certain level below the poverty rate and a reduced price lunch is provided if a student is within a certain range of the poverty rate, he said.

Evanston Township High School remains relatively consistent with the state and national averages for reduced and free lunch eligible children, said Marcus Campbell, the school’s principal and assistant superintendent. This year, the number of students qualifying for either is around 44 percent, he said.

State and federal governments allocate a certain amount of money, called Title I loans, to schools such as ETHS based on the schools’ demonstrated need. Campbell said the district’s Title I allotment usually hovers between $315,000 to $345,000 a year to provide Saturday school, reading and math programs to its students.

“It’s a weird thing, the federal and state governments give money based on your free and reduced numbers,” Campbell said. “That’s assuming that your lowest income kids are your non-readers, and many times that is the case, but many times it is not.”

Although the student body at large reaps the benefits of these funds, Campbell continued, the intended purpose remains a guiding principle in deciding how the money will be spent each year.

“We make sure those kids get free or reduced lunch,” he said. “That money is always spent with the intention that the kids who it’s intended for actually benefit from it.”

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