Washington state lawmakers dump school lunches in Tacoma’s lap. Now, how to pay for them?
Last year the Washington Legislature passed the Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights, which means public school students can no longer be denied food or offered an alternate lunch of cold sandwiches.
Yeah, we know, there’s nothing wrong with a cold sandwich — it gets the job done — but when it singles out and stigmatizes a kid, that lunch can be hard to swallow.
The practice of punishing or humiliating children, who through no fault of their own can’t pay for school meals, was not only pointless, it was deemed cruel by lawmakers.
Passing the law was the right thing to do, but it also created an unfunded mandate. The cost of feeding all these students now falls to individual school districts.
As of this fall, the accumulated lunch debt for Tacoma Public Schools stands at around $180,000 — arguably a paltry sum for a district with $472.8 million in revenue for the 2019-2020 academic year. To put it in perspective, $180,000 is 0.038 percent of TPS’ operating budget.
But as public information director Dan Voelpel told us this week: “Given the millions of dollars the school district recently lost, any amount is significant.” Fair enough. A loss of levy funding caused by legislative reform efforts, combined with teacher pay raises negotiated during last year’s strike, resulted in Tacoma slashing 156 positions since the start of the 2018-19 school year.
The good news is that the Ruth Foundation, a legacy of the Gary E. Milgard Family Foundation, recently awarded the district $151,000 to cover Tacoma’s family meal debt.
The bad news? It was a one-time grant. Who’s going to come to the district’s rescue next year? And the year after that?
These are questions Voelpel says the school board can’t answer yet, but officials are working on it. Well, they’d better work fast because the unintended consequences of the shame-free lunch law are here to stay.
In recent years, local GoFundMe campaigns have temporarily reduced or erased school meal debt, but relying on charity isn’t a solid policy solution. Tacoma and other districts may have to budget for this perennial expense.
At the school board’s Nov. 14 meeting, board member Enrique Leon said he was seeking to partner with United Way. “We’ll keep working on different angles,” he said.
One angle could be getting more kids to sign up for free and reduced-price lunches. Under that program, the federal government pays for meals for families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level.
In 2018, 60 percent of Tacoma public school students received free or reduced-price lunches. District officials believe significantly more are eligible for assistance.
Despite a strong outreach campaign, personal follow-up from AmeriCorps volunteers and a user-friendly online account management system, Voelpel says many families who qualify still don’t apply. And then there are those who don’t quite meet federal criteria but still struggle financially.
Accumulated meal debt isn’t a problem unique to Tacoma; school boards across the state are scrambling to find a sustainable way to meet this challenge.
It begs the question: Is it the school districts’ job to feed every child? Maybe not, but it’s in their best interests to do so. If we want students to learn, they first have to consume good, nutritious calories. Ask any educator and you’ll hear that academic performance and potential go out the window as soon as hunger enters the picture.
Just as local school districts find money to keep the lawns mowed and the lights on, they’ll also have to find it to feed students. Either that, or state lawmakers could finish what they started and fund this unfunded mandate.
HOW TO HELP
Want to donate to help a hungry Tacoma family or help erase school meal debt? Call Tacoma Public Schools at (253) 571-3370. Ask for Patsy Neas.