School Lunches

Although advocates are lobbying Ohio lawmakers to fund free meals for K-12 students in the biennial state budget, one legislative leader has already dismissed the idea.

A coalition of educators and retailers is again pushing Ohio lawmakers to put funds providing free school meals for all students in the state budget.

Southern counties in Ohio showed a particularly high approval rate — 73% approval — for providing students with universal free meals at public schools.

Pickerington Schools and Groveport Madison Schools have joined the Community Eligibility Provision to provide free meals to all students.

School children in eight states can now eat free meals and advocates are urging Congress to extend free meals to all kids nationwide.

The federally funded Pandemic-Electronic Benefit Transfer program was created to support families who count on free and reduced-cost lunch programs when schools went virtual in 2020. The program ends with the current school year.

Public schools across Ohio have seen numbers of meals provided to kids plummet since the waiver expired and parents, advocates and politicians are seeking solutions to feed kids.

There are two resolutions before the Ohio State Board of Education that pertain to free breakfast and lunch programs for students.

Thanks to a pandemic program, over the past two years about 90% of schools were able to serve free meals to all students regardless of income. We take a look at the lessons learned from the two-year experiment in universal free school meals.

President Biden signed The Keep Kids Fed Act last week. It extends pandemic flexibilities for school meals, although with some changes.