S4 E28 BONUS: Coaching, Teaching, & Classroom Management Strategies Sparked From My Conversation with Kalyn Belsha (❤️Olivia Wahl)

The End of Free School Lunches (and What Comes Next)

Learn about the potential end of free school lunches and what could come next. Stay informed on Department of Education news and potential cuts.

In this urgent S4E28 bonus episode, I examine how Republican budget proposals threaten universal free school meals for 12 million students nationwide. Based on senior Chalkbeat reporter Kalyn Belsha's investigative reporting, this episode breaks down the academic, administrative, and financial consequences of these proposed cuts. 

Learn why universal free school meals improve attendance, test scores, and student behavior, and discover how these cuts would create significant burdens for schools already facing resource challenges. This episode provides essential information for educators, parents, and community members concerned about child nutrition and educational equity.

For more resources, including Kalyn's full article and Jennifer Gaddis' book "The Labor of Lunch," visit the show notes. Join me every Monday for research-backed strategies and Friday for bonus reflections to support the children in your care.

Episode Mentions:

• How a Republican plan to cut universal free school meals could affect 12 million students by Kalyn Belsha 
• The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools Volume 70, Jennifer E. Gaddis 
• S3E23: Providing Healthy School Meals to All Students with Food Service ESP, Talisa Jones
• National Education Association (NEA)

00:00 - Introduction: The Threat to Universal Free School Meals 
01:00 - About Skolution's Coaching and Teaching Strategies Podcast 
01:45 - Kalyn Belshaw's Investigation into School Meal Cuts 
03:00 - Impact of Universal Meals: Removing Stigma and Supporting Families 
04:00 - Administrative Burdens and Nutrition Quality Concerns 
05:30 - GOP Proposals: Community Eligibility Requirements Increase 
07:00 - Income Verification Requirements and Paperwork Burden 
08:00 - Financial Impact on Families and School Meal Debt 
09:30 - Immigration Concerns and Tariff Effects 
10:45 - Book Recommendation: "The Labor of Lunch" by Jennifer Gaddis 
12:30 - Moving Away from "Or" Mentality in Public Support 
13:30 - Advocacy Work of Food Service ESPs 
14:15 - Closing and Call to Action

#SchoolMealCrisis #SaveSchoolLunches #FeedingStudents #EducationCuts #StudentHunger #SchoolLunchProgram #UniversalFreeMeals #ChildNutrition #FoodInsecurity #SchoolMealDebt #EquitableEducation #StudentSuccess #EducationPolicy #SchoolMealEquity #ChildrenFirst #EducationAdvocacy #TeacherVoices #SchoolFunding #NutritionMatters #KidsNeedFood

Want to learn more about how the budget cuts will impact children in your care? Check out my full S4E28 interview with Kalyn.

When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there. I'm so glad you're here. Your time is precious. And because of that, I want to let you know right away what you'll gain by listening to the very last second of this episode. My conversation with Kalyn Belsha, a senior national reporter for Chalkbeat, focused on the recent administration's significant and rapid cuts to the Department of Education.

In this bonus episode, I highlight an article that was written by Kalyn, it came out on March 12th, that explains how universal free school meals are at risk from Republican budget proposals, and that this could have significant impacts on student well-being, school operations, and family finances across the United States.

You'll learn why universal free school meals improve attendance, test scores, and behavior. How the proposed cuts would create substantial administrative burdens for schools and families, and why the broader impacts would include increased school meal debt. [00:01:00] Stay with me. I'm so happy to have you as a listener today.

This is Schoolutions: Coaching and Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends education beyond the classroom, a show that offers educators and caregivers strategies to try right away and ensure every student receives the inspiration and support they need to thrive. I am Olivia Wahl, and this is a bonus episode.

It's an accompaniment to my conversation with Kalyn Belsha, Season 4, Episode 28. Kalyn joined the podcast again to give us an update on all things Education Department, and she did a beautiful job breaking down the impacts of the cuts. What I found incredibly powerful in our conversation is Tthe way that her investigative reporting is really uncovering what's going on behind the scenes and the impact that these cuts are having on our children, specifically, and their caregivers.[00:02:00] 

Something Kalyn mentioned at the end of our conversation that was on her radar is the threat to universal free school meals. And as a follow up to that being on her radar, Kalyn published a piece in Chalkbeat, it's called How a Republican Plan to Cut Universal Free School Meals Could Affect 12 Million Students.

I will put a link to this in the show notes. Came out on March 12th. And I just want to uplift some of the quotes from this piece so that you are fully in the loop of the implications if this plan is followed through with. Kalyn writes, “Research has found that universal free school meals can boost school attendance, increase test scores and decrease suspensions, likely because it eliminates the stigma students often associate with the free meals. Taking them away from the students on a large scale could also have downstream effects on everything from families’ household budgets to local unemployment.” 

So I want to pause [00:03:00] there knowing that I have a senior in high school in my house as well as a seventh grader. This stigma that they allude to there has always been a stigma for students that receive free meals. And if we are able to make these meals open to all children, it doesn't matter whether you can afford the meal or not. It makes it open and available and completely removes that stigma. And let's face it, it's also a tremendous help for caregivers, whether you're crunched on time, whether you cannot provide food because inflation and groceries are so expensive right now.

It's a huge help. And we also know if children are hungry, they are not able to attend in school. So this makes absolutely no sense to cut. And here's another downfall. Stephanie Utley, the LaRue County District's director of child nutrition, said that “inevitably fewer kids would eat [00:04:00] school meals, either because their families no longer qualify for free breakfast and lunch, or because they cannot produce documents to verify their income.”

If you're a caregiver with a child in PreK through 12th grade, at the beginning of the year you get sent all these colorful papers to fill in. And one of them is the free and school reduced lunch paperwork. It is not easy to complete. So this idea of not being able to produce documents to verify income, it's just another hoop to jump through to make this harder for caregivers and their children.

And Kalyn writes, “when fewer kids eat school meals, it's harder for districts to cover their costs. To save money, Utley would likely swap higher quality foods for cheaper ones, she said.”

So this will also impact the nutrition that is going into our children's bellies. 

“Apples and beef from local farms would go. The high school would serve fewer salads, they'd be too [00:05:00] labor intensive to prep, and a popular chicken breast sandwich would become a ground chicken patty.“

And this could also result in staff layoffs, which would hurt our community's economies. So those are some of the impacts on our own households, on our own children, on our own communities. But here's how the GOP school meals proposals would impact states. Kalyn writes, “Republican lawmakers are considering a trio of proposals to help offset tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump that would be devastating to children in schools, said Erin Hysom, the Senior Child Nutrition Policy Analyst for the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center.

One proposal would dramatically increase the share of students who would need to be enrolled in aid programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. For schools to be eligible to serve free meals to all kids through the community eligibility provision.

Right now, [00:06:00] schools 25% of students are enrolled in those kind of assistant programs to participate in community eligibility. The House Republican proposal would raise the share to 60%, higher than the threshold has ever been. That would kick more than 24,000 schools off of community eligibility, and some 12 million students would no longer automatically qualify for free meals.”

And this is an estimation from Hysom's organization. And then Kalyn also does a beautiful job breaking down how many students will be affected by the proposed school lunch changes state by state. And you'll be able to see this map when you open the article in the show notes. So, what the essential gist of all of this is, only communities where nearly every child qualifies for free or reduced price lunch could serve free meals to all kids.

And there's a quote from Hyssum that says, [00:07:00] “they've really moved the needle to the upper echelon of poverty.”

There's another proposal Kalyn writes that would require all families who don't automatically qualify for free school meals through programs like SNAP to submit documents to verify their income with their application.

Again, that's a burden for families and schools, time consuming added paperwork, and schools could end up cutting staff who serve food and work on school menus to hire more people to process applications, so there's always an offset that doesn't seem to be considered. But Republicans are claiming “together 12 billion over 10 years according to the list of proposals circulated by U.S. Representative Jodey Arrington, who is the Republican Chair of the House Budget Committee. And then there's a third proposal Kalyn highlights that would change how families qualify for SNAP and likely make over 1 million students no longer automatically eligible for free school meals.”

Again, that would [00:08:00] increase the paperwork burden even more.

So as of Wednesday, March 12th, Congress was considering a separate stopgap budget that would keep funding essentially flat for the agriculture department, which also pays for school meal program through the end of September. And why do we need to take this seriously? Because the administration has already cut a 1 billion dollar agriculture department program that helped schools buy food from local producers.

So this is in motion. And then Kalyn outlines some of the ripple effects. “If fewer kids have access to free meals at school, more families would likely struggle to afford groceries at home.“

I spoke to this at the beginning of this episode. 

“Many families who don't qualify for free meals struggle to pay for food. This school year, a family of four qualified for free school meals if they made under $40,560 a year. And Kalyn goes on, when schools eliminated free school meals for all [00:09:00] following the pandemic, there was a surge in unpaid school meal debt, an issue school staff say will only intensify if these proposals go through.”

And the dangerous aspect of this is it's again, putting the burden on schools who are already stretched so thinly. Right now, “schools typically have to verify the family's income for 3% of their applications. If schools have to check income for every application, the burden would be enormous. And sadly, so many eligible children will fall through the cracks because many families who work multiple jobs, it's going to be hard for them to gather all of the required documents to show how much they earn.”

And we also have to consider, Kalyn writes, “though children can participate in the school meals program regardless of their immigration status, undocumented parents may be afraid to hand over personal documents when Trump is threatening mass deportations.”

The tariffs will also play a part in this. Kalyn [00:10:00] highlights, “schools have to buy most of their food from American sources, but if Trump puts certain tariffs in place for the long term, then that could create a new financial constraint.” 

She interviewed Diane Pratt-Heavner, who's a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors, and conducted the survey. And Diane highlights, “when avocados or tomatoes from Mexico become much more expensive, that will cause an increase in demand for domestic produce, an increase in price as well.”

She also interviewed Shannon Gleave, who's the president of the School Nutrition Association. Gleave is the director of food and nutrition in Arizona's Glendale Elementary School District. And in that district, Shannon shares “that kids can speed through the lunch line because everyone qualifies for free meals. But staff can scan school ID badges to make sure each kid only takes one meal and that children with dietary restrictions get the right food.” 

But it's [00:11:00] insane that we would have to verify every single application. It's just not an efficient use of time. I also want to put a book on your radar if it's not already, it's one of my favorite books. It's called the Labor of Lunch: Why we need real food and real jobs in American public schools. It's written by Jennifer Gaddis. I've been bugging her for years to come on the podcast and I'm not letting up Jennifer.

Um, she's a very busy lady, but this book outlines that There's a problem with school lunch in America. Yes, we know. And it's just getting worse right now. But Jennifer's work, this book, aims to spark a progressive movement that will transform food in American schools. And with it, the lives of thousands of low paid cafeteria workers and the millions of children they feed.

And what I love that Jennifer does, she provides a feminist history of the U. S. National School Lunch Program and then recasts the humble school lunch as an [00:12:00] important and often overlooked form of public care. And in this book, the reason I revisit it over and over again, is Jennifer not only gives us a call to action, but she also provides a blueprint for school lunch reform that is capable of delivering a healthier, more equitable, caring, and sustainable future.

We have to keep looking for what is working and know why it's working if we want to keep it. Those are the words of Pernille Ripp, and I am hanging on those words with everything I've got. Look for what is working and figure out why so that we can keep it. We know our children need to be fed. They need to have their basic needs met in order to be awake and present in schools.

And I was in conversation with a wonderful coach yesterday and something she said to [00:13:00] me, it lingered all night. We have to move away from this or mentality. If someone gets something, it's taking away from me. No, we can make sure that all people are provided food. I can have food for myself, and we can also make sure that our children are provided for.

The children are the hope for the future. Right now, I do not have a lot of faith in grownups. I also had the privilege of interviewing Talisa Jones. She is a food service ESP and she does a lot of beautiful advocacy work with the NEA or National Education Association. I will put a link to that episode in the show notes.

She explains what her life is like as a food service ESP. And Talisa is just a force to be reckoned with. And so many of us in the world of education [00:14:00] love the children that we have the privilege of serving, whether it's in a cafeteria, whether it's in a classroom. And we will continue this work no matter what happens because our children deserve it.

Thank you for tuning in. I will put all these sources in the show notes and take care out there. I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Schoolutions: Coaching and Teaching Strategies is created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. Thank you to my older son, Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background.

You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. Now I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. Let me know how your school or district is preparing to ensure children are fed if free school meal programs are cut.

Tune in every Monday for the best research-backed, coaching and teaching strategies you can [00:15:00] apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care. And stay tuned for my bonus episodes every Friday, where I'll reflect and share connections to what I learned from the guests that week. See you then.