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Meal app offered for high school students lets them order lunch online
A district Food Service program that started in the 2021-22 school year will be back again for the 2022-23 school year. It allows students from Bellefonte Area High School to use a mobile application to order school lunch online that will be ready by the time they get to the cafeteria.The app, SchoolCafe, is set up so students may preorder selected lunch items.
District Food Service Director Laura Frye said the most popular items will be included in the online menu, which students must preorder through the app by 9 a.m. each day. When doing so, cafeteria staff will make the lunches in the morning and set it aside with the students'names on it by the time of their lunch period. Frye said it’s a great way to order ahead of time and avoid all the foot traffic in the cafeteria.
Students may also have access to SchoolCafe on their school-provided Chromebooks, which may also be used to check lunch balances through the Food Service website. Free lunches districtwide for the 2022-23 school year are also not guaranteed, as it has been the past two years. That, Frye said, is due to a grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that expired at the end of the 2021-22 school year.
Frye added that the grant was originally offered for two years that made it possible for school districts, such as Bellefonte Area, not to charge for school meals. With that said, however, applications are being accepted for students and their families to apply for free and reduced meals, which may be accessed online, here: Free and reduced meals
*By Brit Milazzo, public relations director, BASD. To learn more about SchoolCafe, visit this link: SchoolCafe.
