7/7/2023 0 Comments Ohio ebt cardHe said the names could have been left off for a variety of reasons, including a number being transposed or a field not being properly marked. “This isn’t just Louisville and it’s not just Stark County, it’s all over the state,” Bowe said. He said efforts already are underway to correct the omission.īowe said other information technology directors in Ohio also have reported receiving messages that eligible families have not received their card. He said it appears only the names of students at Louisville Middle School were submitted. Marty Bowe, director of the Stark/Portage Area Computer Consortium, blames an algorithm issue for Louisville students’ names being omitted. “People are calling me and I keep trying to reassure them that they are on the list, but just for whatever reason, the technology didn’t (work),” she said. She estimated that her office has fielded more than dozen calls in the past two days from Louisville families whose children have not received their P-EBT card. Jan Williams, food service director for the Louisville City School District, knows it’s more than just a few families affected. A representative from the Ohio Department of Education did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday.Īndrews’ message suggests that the state’s action to reopen the window was spurred by a few families who had notified their schools that they were eligible for the benefits but their names were not included on the first list that was submitted in May. Representatives from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services did not respond to messages left Tuesday and Wednesday. In Stark County, roughly 30,000 students are eligible for the federal program. How many eligible students may have been missed – and what caused the errors – remains unclear.Īn estimated 850,000 children statewide are eligible to receive the pandemic food benefit because their family’s income qualified them for free or reduced lunches. The state wants the new names submitted by July 10, wrote Andrews, who could not be reached Wednesday. Geoffrey Andrews, chief executive officer of The Management Council, wrote in his message to the directors that the Ohio Department of Education, which has acted as a liaison between the school districts and job and family services, would be alerting superintendents that they need to review their previously submitted data to determine which students were missed. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services is reopening the window to allow school districts to submit names of eligible children that may have been missed the first time around, according to a message sent Friday to the directors of Ohio’s 18 Information Technology Centers. It appears that Edwards’ children aren’t the only ones unaccounted for. She learned that her two younger sons were not on the list of eligible names. On Tuesday – more than two weeks after receiving the first card – Edwards called the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to find out why she still had not received the additional P-EBT cards. The state also had said families should expect to receive the cards in the mail by the third week of June. She found it odd that she didn’t receive cards for her other boys, ages 8 and 10, but figured those cards may have been processed separately since they were in a different building than their brother. While other states have required families to register, eligible Ohio families received their P-EBT cards automatically.Įdwards received the P-EBT card for her 15-year-old in mid-June. Eligible households could receive up to $302 for every school-age child. The pandemic food benefits program, called Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer, aims to make up for the free meals that students missed this spring when schools were closed as part of the state’s efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. “With the kids being home from school, they’re eating me out of house and home,” the single mother said.Įdwards, whose income has been cut due to furloughs and reduced work hours, was relieved when she learned that the federal government was providing families with hundreds of dollars to spend on food. What used to be a $300 bill is now reaching $500 for the Louisville family. Sarah Edwards’ grocery bill has skyrocketed since March when the state’s closing of school buildings meant her three growing sons were home all day, every day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |