{"main_topic":"education","sub_topic":"georgiainsights","topic":"free_reduced_lunch","key":"education/georgiainsights/free_reduced_lunch","version":"1.0.0","year_min":2013,"year_max":2026,"year_gaps":[],"update_frequency":"annual","detail_levels":["districts","schools","states"],"default_detail":"schools","path_template":"education/free_reduced_lunch/year={year}/{detail}.parquet","grain":["year","district_code","school_code","reporting_status"],"title":"Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Eligibility","summary":"Share of K-12 students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a proxy for economic disadvantage, per school, district, and state, 2013-2026.","description":"Georgia Insights (GaDOE) Free and Reduced Price Meal Eligibility — the share of K-12 enrolled students eligible for Free or Reduced-price Lunch (FRL) under the USDA National School Lunch Program, for every Georgia public school, district/system, and the state, fiscal years 2013-2026. A widely used proxy for student economic disadvantage. Eligibility is income-based per the USDA Federal Income Eligibility Guidelines: free meals at or below 130% of the federal poverty level, reduced-price between 130% and 185%; the combined FRL rate counts students up to the 185% threshold. This is the broad income/application-based eligibility measure — the automatic categorical-eligibility SUBSET (students certified without an application via SNAP/TANF/foster/homeless/migrant/Medicaid) is the companion topic direct_certification.","source":"Georgia Insights (GaDOE) — Free and Reduced Price Meal Eligibility","source_url":"https://georgiainsights.gadoe.org/data-downloads/","endpoint":"/api/v1/education/free_reduced_lunch","columns":[{"name":"year","type":"integer","role":"year","nullable":false,"label":"Year","short_description":"","description":"Georgia fiscal year = ending calendar year of the school year (2024 = the 2023-2024 school year; Georgia FY ends June 30). Sourced from the bronze filename, cross-checked against each file's preamble.","valid_values":null,"example":2024,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"district_code","type":"string","role":"fk_district","nullable":true,"label":"District Code","short_description":"","description":"GaDOE district/system code (FK to districts dimension). Standard county/city systems are 3-digit zero-padded codes; state-specialty and charter systems use 7-digit codes. NULL for state-level rows.","valid_values":null,"example":"601","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"school_code","type":"string","role":"fk_school","nullable":true,"label":"School Code","short_description":"","description":"4-digit GaDOE school code, extracted from the bronze composite `School ID - School Name` column (FK to schools dimension, composite with district_code — the same school_code can appear in multiple districts). NULL for district- and state-level rows.","valid_values":null,"example":"1050","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"reporting_status","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":true,"label":"Reporting Status","short_description":"Why the rate is present or NULL: reported, privacy-suppressed (rate >95% or <5%), or not participating.","description":"Why `free_reduced_lunch_rate` is present or NULL. `reported` — bronze carried a numeric rate; `suppressed_privacy_band` — bronze `*` (the true rate is greater than 95% or less than 5%, hidden by the source; dual-ended, so a suppressed entity cannot be inferred to sit at either end); `not_participating` — bronze `#` or `NA` (entity does not participate in the FRL program; under the Community Eligibility Provision many high-poverty schools fall here because meals are universal rather than means-tested, so it does NOT imply low poverty). Never NULL in FY2013-FY2026 bronze (every rate cell carries a value or a marker — enforced by a quality check); a NULL would mean a genuinely missing bronze cell.","valid_values":["not_participating","reported","suppressed_privacy_band"],"example":"reported","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"free_reduced_lunch_rate","type":"number","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Free Reduced Lunch Rate","short_description":"Share of K-12 students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch on a 0-1 scale; NULL means suppressed or not participating (see reporting_status).","description":"Share of K-12 enrolled students eligible for Free or Reduced-price Lunch (0-1 decimal scale; bronze `KK-12 % FRL` divided by 100). NULL when the source suppressed the rate (`*`) or the entity does not participate (`#`/`NA`) — see `reporting_status` for which. Every published rate lies within the source's [0.05, 0.95] publication band.","valid_values":null,"example":0.6889,"unit":"proportion","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null}],"key_metric":"free_reduced_lunch_rate","usage":"Star-schema fact table. Join the districts dimension on district_code; the schools dimension on district_code + school_code. Read directly with DuckDB over Parquet.","limitations":"free_reduced_lunch_rate is NULL whenever the source did not publish a numeric rate; the reporting_status column records WHY. Bronze `*` (reporting_status='suppressed_privacy_band') is a dual-ended PRIVACY suppression — it means the rate was greater than 95% or less than 5%, so a suppressed entity cannot be inferred to be at either the high or the low end. Consequently, every published (non-null) rate falls within the [0.05, 0.95] band. Bronze `#` (and the rare `NA`, FY2016 only) (reporting_status='not_participating') means the entity does not participate in the FRL program at all — under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), many high-poverty schools show `#` because meals are universal rather than means-tested, so a `#` does NOT imply low poverty. State rows come exclusively from the District CSV's `State-Wide Total` row; School files carry no state aggregate. FY2025-FY2026 show substantially elevated `*` suppression (expanded CEP coverage). This is the broad income-based FRL eligibility measure (free <=130% FPL, reduced 130-185%); the automatic categorical subset is the companion direct_certification topic.","null_semantics":{"suppressed_to_null":true,"zero_is_real":true},"available_years":[2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020,2021,2022,2023,2024,2025,2026],"schema_hash":"3a1e4394f33288dc91c72a06d9977bce94215412ce53a5277dab6094a4047f42","tags":["education","georgia insights","free_reduced_lunch"],"granularity_description":"One row per year, district_code, school_code, reporting_status (geography columns are NULL at higher aggregation levels).","example_queries":[{"description":"Latest year (2026), schools detail","query":"SELECT * FROM free_reduced_lunch WHERE year = 2026 LIMIT 100"},{"description":"District 601 in 2026","query":"SELECT * FROM free_reduced_lunch WHERE district_code = '601' AND year = 2026 LIMIT 100"},{"description":"Filter by reporting_status = reported","query":"SELECT * FROM free_reduced_lunch WHERE reporting_status = 'reported' AND year = 2026 LIMIT 100"}],"foreign_keys":[{"column":"district_code","target_object":"districts","target_columns":["district_code"],"attribute_columns_added":["district_name","district_census_id","district_type"],"scope":"domain"},{"column":"school_code","target_object":"schools","target_columns":["district_code","school_code"],"attribute_columns_added":["school_name"],"scope":"domain"}],"filters":[{"param":"year","kind":"year_exact","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_min","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_max","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"detail","kind":"detail","type":"string","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["districts","schools","states"],"default":"schools"},{"param":"district_code","kind":"foreign_key","column":"district_code","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"school_code","kind":"foreign_key","column":"school_code","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"reporting_status","kind":"categorical","column":"reporting_status","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["not_participating","reported","suppressed_privacy_band"],"has_total":false,"total_value":null,"requires_single_value":true},{"param":"district_type","kind":"dimension_attribute","dimension":"districts","column":"district_type","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["commission_charter","resa","standard","state_agency","state_charter","state_school","state_special"]}],"filter_hints":[]}