At-risk students attending Round Rock ISD schools will now receive free breakfast and lunch beginning in the 2014–15 school year.

At an Aug. 21 meeting, the district's board of trustees approved offering free meals to at-risk students who would otherwise qualify for reduced-price meal benefits, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture standards. The free meal program comes from The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, passed in 2010 by Congress.

"This is the first year that [the USDA is] allowing us to do that," Director of Food Services Kelly Grones said. "Our Food Service Fund is required to maintain a three-month operating balance and we're currently over that operating balance, so we actually have an excess. We think it would be a positive strategy to use these funds to be able to offer this for our students."

The goal of the act is to improve child nutrition and increase access to school meals for at-risk students, according to the USDA. Schools offering the free meals may continue to receive federal reimbursement. Based on 2014 district projections, offering the free meals would reduce RRISD's food service revenue by approximately $146,000 for the 2014–15 school year.

The USDA is responsible for federally assisted child nutrition programs including the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.