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U.S. News & World Report
Shutdown
Resolution Averts School Lunch Crisis
Meals programs administered through the schools by the Department of
Agriculture were in danger of running out of money, even though
education funding was secure.
By Lauren Camera, Education Reporter
Jan. 25, 2019
FRIDAY'S RESOLUTION OF the weekslong partial federal government
shutdown has averted a crisis in an area long held to be a
vulnerability in the public education system: the 22 million poor
students who rely on the federal National School Lunch and breakfast
programs for meals.
With federal employees returning to return to work and federal funds
beginning to flow again, the programs are back on safe ground. But the
shutdown drew attention to the uncomfortable duality of a meals program
housed at public schools run by the Department of Education yet
administered by the Department of Agriculture.
Federal K-12 programs were largely insulated from the shutdown because
most of them are forward-funded, meaning dollars awarded each fiscal
year are not tapped until the following school year. But Agriculture,
which runs the National School Lunch Program and breakfast programs
that cumulatively serve 30 million students, was at risk of running out
of money.
"School meal programs operate on extremely tight budgets, and many lack
reserve funds to continue serving students should federal funding
lapse," Gay Anderson, president of the School Nutrition Association,
said this week in a statement. "School districts – especially those
serving America's neediest students – are simply not equipped to cover
meal expenses without federal support."
Department of Agriculture officials warned that a protracted shutdown
would jeopardize the programs' funding sources, saying that states had
adequate funds to support school meal programs through the month of
February and into March. That led nonprofit organizations like the
School Nutrition Association to urge Congress and President Donald
Trump to resolve the impasse before any lapse in school meal funding
occured.
A powerful coalition of education organizations representing school
superintendents, principals, school boards, parents and the two
national teachers unions even banded together in an unlikely alliance
to draw attention to the problem. They urged Trump and congressional
leadership to pass and sign a funding bill for the Department of
Agriculture that the House of Representatives passed earlier this month.
"These school meal programs will provide more than 8 billion meals and
snacks to low-income families," the eight groups wrote. "The current
shutdown traps these important funds in budget debates taking place
right now. We strongly urge you to ensure our nation's neediest
students do not go hungry in schools."
School districts around the country, and especially those close to
Washington, D.C., where large swaths of the community are government
employees disproportionately impacted by the shutdown, took measures to
ensure their students would continue to have access to food during the
school day.
Schools officials with Fairfax County Public Schools, just outside the
Beltway in Virginia, announced this month that breakfast and lunch
would be provided to all students regardless of ability to pay or
temporary financial circumstances, that there will be no so-called
"lunch shaming," and unpaid lunch balances will be allowed to accrue.
"[Fairfax] believes in the benefits of a healthy meal to support
academic success in the classroom, and wants to ensure that none of our
students comes to school hungry, no matter their family's economic
circumstances," Scott Brabrand, Fairfax school superintendent, said in
a statement.
Meanwhile, in Maryland's Prince George's County Public Schools, also
just outside Washington, school officials set out to fundraise to cover
20,000 school meals to support families impacted by the shutdown. After
just one week officials raised $31,000 – enough to cover more than
10,000 meals.
"For some students, the meals they receive at school may be their only
one of the day," Monica Goldson, the district's interim chief executive
officer, said.
Read this and other articles at U.S. News & World Report
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