Imagine an overwhelmingly popular public policy that universally improved the lives of our K-12 students in both measurable and immeasurable ways. Imagine it reduced local taxes, school suspensions, student stigmas, and stress among students, teachers, administrators, parents and guardians alike, improved test scores and children’s health, all while saving families time and money, and making our classrooms more effective learning environments.
Now imagine further that all public school families have already experienced and understand the benefits of such a policy program firsthand. You may say that we should continue that program in perpetuity, right?
Surprise! That exact policy, Connecticut’s universal school meals program, conferred all of those benefits and more in our schools for two years! It provided free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students, before it expired prior to this school year.
Well-established research shows and common sense dictates that feeding schoolchildren is good and the right thing to do.
Any family at any income level benefits from saving an extra $3.75-$6.50 a day and any parent relishes an extra 15 to 30 minutes of sleep by not having to wake up early to make breakfast and a lunch before sending their child off to school. Subsequently at school all students receive nourishment from sitting together at the lunch table to break bread as equal peers, with no distinction between haves and have-nots.
Yet, an argument often deployed against universal programs is that children of families above a certain income level should not be included, also known as means-testing. But, why not? Why should those who pay a hearty amount in taxes not also benefit from their tax dollars?
The beauty of universality is that it allows us all to share a piece of the pie. Public schools already operate within a framework of universal access. Unlike under means-testing, there is no income examination when students walk into our schoolhouses. There is no cutoff for entry if their parents make too much or too little. All of our children, regardless of background, already learn together in the same classrooms. Why should the lunchroom be different?
Means-testing flat out does not work. Means-testing creates more costs and starves out those in need.
Means-testing wastes time, tax dollars, and the energy of parents and schools alike. If you have a student in school or work in our schools, you probably remember how much easier it was when a universal meals program was in place: no application process; no income reporting; no time spent figuring out what school meals your children may or may not be eligible for. They show up to school and eat breakfast at breakfast time and lunch at lunchtime. Simple. Efficient. And everybody benefits together.
Further on the point of a universal school meals policy being worth its salt, the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that when meals programs are means-tested fewer students participate and ultimately go hungry. These unpalatable results are recognized in school districts around our state as a result of the stigma and obstacles created by means-testing. Conversely, when school meals programs are universalized, it causes meal participation to rise and stigmas to fade.
In states like Massachusetts, which have solidified funding for universal meals, parents notice that their schools are “able to try all of these healthy food alternatives and focus on that rather than whether they’ll have enough [funding] each month.” Additionally, these parents note that “at home, I could probably never introduce [my daughter] to chickpeas. But since it was something she was doing with her friends, she tried it and she liked it!”
Locally in Waterford, parents have savored similar successes. Kayla Mullen’s daughter, Maria, lives with cerebral palsy and benefited greatly from the free meals program. Kayla said it also gave her daughter an opportunity to explore new foods amongst friends and moreover, created an avenue for her to start to overcome her related struggles with eating.
“While [Maria’s] primary source of nutrition is through her gastrostomy tube, she is able to swallow and try different foods if she is willing,” Kayla explained to me. “The opportunity that existed for her to eat at the lunch table with her friends was improving her ability to be open to trying new things. Being with her classmates helped her see what she is supposed to do when eating foods.”
Kayla continued, recounting that due to the lack of income restrictions “the universal school meals program gave us the opportunity to get [Maria] things we knew she wasn’t ready to commit to eat but was willing to taste.” Kayla concluded, “that opportunity was such a relief to us because we are a one income family of four, and being able to provide her with options is a financial strain.”
Allowing school children with special needs to expand their nutritional horizons is yet another benefit created during our two years of funding for universal school meals.
Additionally, Waterford school cafeteria staff have pointed out the inefficiencies, difficulties, and waste created by leaving our universal meals program to wither on the vine. When the program was in place, our schools were much more able to dependably gauge funding and student participation levels throughout the school year. This reliability allowed for more efficiently spaced cost-saving bulk purchases. However, with the program’s rollback our schools’ dining and nutrition services have had to revert back to the more costly approach of planning meal service and food purchases on a much more short-term basis, at most until the end of each month.
In fact, because of the stability of the two years of guaranteed federal funding that Connecticut school districts received, our schools were even able to support local economies, buy from local farmers, and prepare fresher, healthier meals for our school cafeterias.
Following the sunsetting of federal support for school meals, East Hampton schools’ nutrition director, Jennifer Bove, also observed a decrease in revenue and increase in cost due to “lagging participation [which] raises production costs.” This resulted in East Hampton schools reverting to buying food products of lesser quality and halting their farm-to-school program that served farm-fresh local produce and meat to students. Bove said of the rollback, “it hurts the local economy. I’m not going to be able to buy from these farms anymore and it hurts the quality of food that I serve. We do a lot of cooking from scratch as well. I don’t know that I can afford to keep the staff on to do that… It affects everything across the board.”
While real help for real families in our state is allowed to evaporate, it is hard not to notice that proven wasteful and ineffective corporate subsidies are rarely if ever questioned by our state lawmakers. That dichotomy is unconscionable to me, as I hope it is to you.
Given our increasingly expensive and time-starved lives, there should be no question on whether to continue providing a necessity as basic as food to all of our school children. In the end, child hunger is a policy choice. Now is the time to respect what works for working families.
Bon appétit.
Nick Gauthier of Waterford is a candidate for state representative of the 38th District, Waterford and Montville.