About School Meals

• School breakfast is offered at every school and absolutely free for ALL DCPS students.
• After school snack and after school supper meals are offered at select schools and are absolutely free for ALL DCPS students.
• In the 2016-2017 school year 87 schools will be certified for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows all children at those schools to receive lunch meals at no charge.
• For children enrolled at all other DCPS schools a Free and Reduced-price Meal (FARM) Application must be filled out even if you would like to decline this benefit.
• Please read this important message regarding School Lunch Prices for SY 2016-17.

Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) supports student health and achievement by ensuring that all DCPS students receive nutritious meals and acquire the resources to make healthy choices. We believe in providing appetizing school meals made from fresh, locally produced ingredients, and we strive to engage the entire DC community in implementing programs that encourage healthy decision-making and promote sustainable practices.

• Search for your school's meal menus,
• Review our Nutrition Standards, or
• Read more about DCPS's efforts towards providing healthy, consistent meals for our students on the USDA blog website. 

What's New

• The  Application for Free and Reduced Meals is available to download along with a list of DCPS Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) schools.
• Our meal prices and charge policy are subject to change. Visit the Meal Prices and Payment page for the most up-to-date information.
• Are you a DCPS volunteer, parent, teacher, administrator looking to have breakfast or lunch in a school? Visit the Adult Meal Registration Form to get a meal account today.

Our Vision for School Food

The DCPS Food and Nutrition Services believes in serving students whole, primarily unprocessed, high-quality, natural foods which are prepared and presented in an appetizing manner.

We believe it is important to cultivate a natural palate at an early age.

We believe in the value of eating seasonally and in purchasing food from local growers to ensure peak freshness and to support the local economy.

• At minimum, 20 percent of all produce or food products used in school meals must be grown or processed in the Mid Atlantic region.

We believe that eating is critical to academic success and that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

• Breakfast in the Classroom is available in 94 of 111 schools.
• After school meals are available at 95 of 111 schools.

We believe that all students should have access to school meals and should be given food choice.

• Salad bars are available in 32 schools.
• Vegetarian meals are available in all schools daily.

We believe that nutrition education and adult role modeling are fundamental to school food change.

We believe that school garden programs, after school cooking classes, and culinary education courses create lifelong good habits.

We believe everyone deserves to be heard. Please submit feedback, comments or questions to Food and Nutrition Services.

Update on New Food Contract for School Year 2016-2017

DCPS is moving forward with developing a new food service contract for school year 2016-2017. Check out the letter linked to below for an update on the new requirements that will be added to the contract as a result of the feedback we have heard from students, families and the community.