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GREENSBORO — Next school year, fewer Guilford County schools may be able to offer universal free breakfast.

Is providing free breakfasts to students something the school system should be doing? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

School officials will reevaluate which schools are eligible for the program after discovering that it might lose money for the district.

"We think it is a good program, and one worth continuing," said Sharon Ozment, chief financial officer for Guilford County Schools. But she said the district needs to find out how to make it affordable.

If all students took advantage of the free meal program offered at 26 schools, the program would be more than $350,000 in the red this year, school officials said Tuesday at a Board of Education administrative briefing.

So far this school year, that hasn't happened, Ozment said. In fact, the program has run a slight surplus of $3,300.

Currently, schools are eligible for universal free breakfast if 70 percent or more of their students qualify for free and reduced lunch.

The district receives reimbursement from the federal government for students who receive free or reduced-cost meals. But it's the reimbursements for the free-lunch students that cover the vast majority of the cost to feed breakfast to all students at the schools.

And that's where the problem lies.

Ozment said the schools should probably be eligible based only on the number of students receiving free lunch, and not on students receiving both free and reduced meals.

If the district requires 80 percent of the students in a school to be on free lunch to qualify for the universal free breakfast program, then 18 schools in the program would not qualify.

Even if the district cuts back the universal free breakfast program, students who qualify for free or reduced-cost meals will still be able to get breakfast at their schools.

But Superintendent Terry Grier said the benefit of the universal breakfast is that it feeds all students, including those who might qualify for free or reduced meals but who have not signed up for the program.

School leaders said they have ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that some students only eat the meals they get at school.

"We are trying really hard to make our meals as healthy as we can. It comes at a cost," said Cynthia Sevier, director of school nutrition services.

School officials considered canceling the program for the rest of the school year after realizing that the district would have to absorb any of the costs not covered by the federal reimbursements.

But Grier instead asked that financial officials watch the budget carefully, since there is little room for overruns.

If the number of students eating the free breakfast doesn't change for the rest of the school year, the program won't lose money, Ozment said.

"We have to monitor this very closely," Grier said.

School board members will consider the issue at their upcoming retreat.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com