Lake Oswego Housing Needs: In Last Decade The Number of Students Eligible for Reduced and Free Lunches Increased by 146% to More than 800.

I recently looked at some data on students eligible for reduced and free lunches in Lake Oswego.  

Compared to the HUD median family income for the Portland metro area of $73,000 students are eligible for 

• Free lunches at 41% of MFI (130% of poverty income or $29,965) or 
• Reduced cost lunches at 58% of MFI (185% of poverty or $42,643). 

The graph below shows the count of eligible students by school and for the district as a whole; the total count of eligible students in Lake Oswego schools increased from 330 to 812 in 2011-2012 (an increase of 482 students/146%).

NOT shown in the graph: 

• While the count of students eligible for free or reduced cost lunch increased by 482 (146%), total student enrollment decreased  by 383 (5.4%) from 7,133 to 6,750 students.
• This means that 12% of Lake Oswego school district students were eligible for free or reduced lunches in 2011-2012 school year vs 4.6% in 2001-2002. That's an even larger increase of 160% in the share of students eligible for free or reduced lunches in Lake Oswego schools.
• Some students who live in Lake Oswego attend City of Portland schools so counts for those students do not appear in LO School District counts. 

Note: School lunch enrollment data for districts can be found and downloaded HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.