By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer

NORTHFIELD – The cost of buying lunch in the Northfield Community School cafeteria will be slightly higher next year.

At its reorganization meeting April 28, the Board of Education approved an additional 10 cents to be added to the price of each lunch to cover the cost of the food to the school.  Lunch for elementary students will be $2.20, up from the $2.10 that students pay this year. The cost for the middle school lunches will be $2.45 per day.

“The increased cost is necessary,” said Linda Albright, business administrator and board secretary. “The increased cost of food and fuel is a real burden and the reason we had to raise the price of the lunches.”

Northfield School District uses Nutri-Serve Food Management Corp. as its food service supplier. The district broke away from the arrangement it had with Mainland Regional High School in 2006. Albright said the food service program runs just about break-even.

The board also raised tuition rates for out-of-district students next year about 10 percent. Tuition for kindergarten students went to $8,861 from $7,892. Parents whose students are in first through fifth grade will pay $8,305 compared with $7,550 last year.

However, tuition for students in grade six through eight was lowered to $7,251 from $7,976. According to Albright, the decrease is because of the large number of students in grades six through eight.

“The tuition cost is the actual cost and it is calculated from the budget program that is run. It is simply the cost divided by the enrollment to come up with the figure we use for tuition,” she said.

Northfield generally has few tuition students at any one time. It is normally an arrangement that is made when someone is moving into or out of the community. Tuition students are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Board of Education.

District Superintendent Richard Stepura said there currently are no tuition students coming to Northfield as a result of Blessed Sacrament Regional School closing in Margate at the end the current school year.