Students may go hungry when the federal free lunch program ends | tidings
Coloradans will have the chance to vote this November to prevent the “catastrophic” consequences of ending a federal free school meal program.
Beginning in March 2020, the federal school meal waiver allowed school districts to provide free meals to all students, regardless of whether they qualified under the National School Lunch Program for free or reduced-cost meals. The program was set to end on June 30.
However, President Joe Biden signed the Keep the Kids Fed Act on June 25, which provides federal reimbursements at higher rates than before the pandemic, extending through the 2022-23 school year, according to NPR. The act also allows schools to continue offering free meals to all students during the summer — but eligibility requirements will return in the fall.
Waiver of eligibility had a “huge impact” on the Colorado Springs School 11 community, says Kent Wehri, director of Food and Nutrition Services.
“We saw more children eating than we had seen before in the last five years,” says Wehri. Ending the layoffs, he says, will be “catastrophic” for the D11 program.
Students who qualified for a free or reduced-cost lunch — about 54 percent, in D11 — previously had to ask their parents to fill out a form to apply for the benefit, Wehri says. The waiver eliminated the need to qualify, and thus the need to fill out forms. When the program ends, Wehri says parents will have to return to that process. This step alone can cause participation to drop.
“There are a number of reasons why people don’t do the paperwork, or why students don’t accept the benefit,” says Elizabeth Quevedo, director of community impact for Pikes Peak United Way.
Before the waiver program began, some students who qualified for free or reduced-cost meals did not feel comfortable accepting the benefits. Especially in schools where a lower percentage of students qualify for free or reduced-cost meals, children may feel social pressure to turn down the benefits in order to not stand out.
But with waivers for all students, Quevedo says, “when everyone is the same [and] everyone must eat lunch and breakfast, [for] students who really need it, the stigma is gone.”
“[W]then we see those numbers [of students using free meals] stand up, we know the need is there,” she adds. “It’s not just because it’s free — it’s because the need was there before, and they just weren’t accessing it.”
Quevedo says undocumented families may also be reluctant to fill out the forms for fear of giving away personal information.
Congress’ decision not to continue the waiver of eligibility requirements will mean that about 10,600 students out of the approximately 28,000 served by D11 will have to come up with those meals themselves, according to Wehri.
However, just because someone may not qualify for free or reduced-cost meals does not mean that they are always able to get by. Quevedo calls this “the rock of benefits.”
“They’re making enough money to not qualify for benefits, but life is expensive and they’re still struggling, even with basic needs,” she says.
“Children are expensive,” she adds. “They eat a lot.”
According to ABC News, about 10 million children nationwide would lose access to free lunch on June 30. However, several states have either passed or introduced legislation to ensure that free meals remain available to students, including Colorado.
HB 22-1414, or the Healthy School Meals for All Act, will let voters decide in the Nov. 8 election whether the state will create a permanent program to provide free public school meals to all students.
“Now that strategies exist to prevent hunger for all students during the school day, it is imperative that the state embrace these strategies to move toward the goal of ending child hunger,” the bill states.
School districts will opt in and the program will be paid for by increasing state taxable income for those with federal taxable income of $300,000 or more by “limiting itemized or standard state income tax deductions to $12,000 per filings of a tax return and $16,000 for joint tax return filers.”
The program will also provide grants to participating schools to “purchase products grown, raised or processed in Colorado, to increase wages or provide wages for employees who prepare and serve school meals, and to establish committees parent and student advisory groups to provide advice to ensure school meals are healthy and appealing to all students.”
Quevedo hopes the bill will pass, as does Wehr, who said he participated in discussions to draft the legislation. He hopes the state won’t let the progress of the federal child nutrition waiver slip.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to feed kids,” he says, “and we want to make sure we feed every kid, because no kid can learn when they’re hungry.”
There are still options available for some schools. Harrison School District 2, for example, participates in the federal Community Eligibility Assurance program, which allows qualifying schools in low-income areas to serve free lunch and breakfast to students without collecting household applications.
Shelley Becker, the district’s CFO and assistant superintendent, said D2 has fed students for free through the program for the past eight years or more — and that will continue after the federal waivers expire.
However, this is not an option for every county. According to the Colorado Department of Education, only 23 of 178 districts in the state participated in the program during the 2020-2021 school year, the most recent data available. Wehri said in an email that D11 does not currently qualify for the program.
Wendy Birhanzel, D2 superintendent, points out that proper nutrition is necessary to help students succeed.
“I think we can’t take for granted that every child has access to breakfast and lunch, so we have to make sure, as schools in particular, that we partner with whoever that may be, whether it’s families, whether it’s the Legislature, to provide them with food,” she says. “But we really have to be aware that our students have a need and we have to meet that need.”