By Ryan Spoehr
Editor
The Whitewater School Board has granted a request from a student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater to research reasons behind students declining free and reduced lunch program, which is a program that directly affects the district’s budget year with its participation.
Kelly Seichter, the district’s director of instruction, introduced university student Nathanayle Kelty, who will be conducting the study, to the board at the Feb. 28 meeting immediately prior to a presentation by Kelty and subsequent approval of the study by the school board.
“We would like to work with the university, and Nate and his supervisor on a study and why our numbers of free and reduced lunches have reduced, with the end goal of capturing students, making sure they have what they need and the funding comes along with those numbers at the high school,” Seicther said.
Kelty, a junior at UW-Whitewater conducted a similar type of study at Fort Atkinson High School last year.
“They had a similar interest in this project because they have noticed that elementary to middle to high, the drop-off rates for free and reduced lunch families dropped off significantly,” Kelty said. “The overall goal of this project is to, if not help you guys find a way to increase the families participating in the program, at least know what the causes are.”
The amount of families participating in the free and reduced lunch program directly affects the budget for the school and the district. When more families signing up for the program, the district receives more money in their annual budget.
A student survey will be conducted, just as Kelty and his supervisor did in Fort Atkinson. However, names and student identities will be kept confidential. The survey will be conducted via email with a link that students will be able to click on.
“The surveys will just be numbers and I won’t know the numbers assigned to the student,” Kelty said.
The survey will be different, however, from the Fort Atkinson survey Kelty conducted. Due to time, he was only able to conduct a survey to 18-year-old seniors. At Whitewater High School, he will be able to do a survey to the entire high school student body.
“The second thing would be looking at the applications and comparing previous applications with current applications that were accepted into the program, and for that, having all information redacted and just having the numbers,” Kelty said.
Kelty is a political science and legal studies major at the university.
