Oregon lawmakers want more school meal options, federal changes may limit them

More than 300,000 Oregon children are adversely affected by hunger every day.

Educators, advocates and lawmakers have been trying to make food more accessible in schools for years, from expanding the time of day students can be served breakfast to streamlining the process for parents to pay for reduced-priced meals so a student is never turned away.

For the 2019 legislative session, which starts Tuesday, several Oregon legislators want to expand options further, with the ultimate goal of ensuring all students have free breakfast and lunch. 

When students come to class hungry, they have a harder time focusing, they don't learn as much and they are more likely to act out with negative behaviors. 

Research shows this can add up to lower graduation and attendance rates, higher discipline and health referrals, a wider achievement gap and increased dependency on social and medical services. 

Three legislative concepts have been proposed that would expand school options in the form of universal school meals, an expansion of the Community Eligibility Provisions and an expansion of the Breakfast After the Bell initiative. 

Oregon is in a unique position to fund these ideas as the Joint Committee on Student Success evaluates the greatest needs in Oregon K-12 schools and prepares a comprehensive policy and budget package. 

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"In school right now, we're really asking kids to do quite a lot and to push really hard to strive and achieve, and it's kind of like we're tying their hands behind their backs when they're sitting in class on an empty stomach," Annie Kirschner, executive director of Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, said in her testimony to the House Interim Committee on Education in December.

"All of these priorities, whatever investments the state makes, will work even better if all kids have the food that they need," she told the committee.

But the legislators' task will become more difficult as federal rollbacks reduce nutritional standards and the cost of providing meals reaches into the millions.

Hunger in Oregon schools

About 1 in every 7 Oregon households is food insecure, meaning they don't have consistent, reliable access to nutritious and affordable food. 

That number increases to nearly 1 in 5 when looking specifically at Oregon households with children, according to a report by the USDA evaluating 2014-16 census data.

Oregon is in the top 15 states in the country with the highest rates of food insecurity, compared to the national average. And it gets even worse for specific demographics. 

Forty percent of households with single mothers are food insecure and people of color are two to three times more likely to be food insecure than white people. 

All of these data are exacerbated by the fact that more students qualify for free and reduced-priced meals now than before the global recession hit in 2008.

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Additionally, more than a third of kids who are food insecure fall into a gap of services because their families make too much money to qualify for free and reduced lunch, but not enough to regularly provide healthy meals. 

In Salem-Keizer Public Schools, the poverty rate is determined by families who qualify for free and reduced lunch. Eligibility is largely based on the total household income and how many are dependent on that money.

Nearly 60 percent of the district's 42,230 students — more than 25,300 children — are considered to be living in poverty.

These numbers are telling of a statewide issue that impacts countless other aspects of daily life — the ability to learn, the ability to secure a job and housing and the dependency on medical services throughout a child's life.

"We know this on a level as adults, but it is hard to concentrate and focus when we haven't eaten, especially breakfast," Kirschner with Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon.   

"But with kids at school, it adds a level of anxiety and fear that manifests in being distracted and having behavior issues — acting out, sometimes even aggression," she said. "It's coming from a place of uncertainty and trauma, or fear around food."

Advocates like Kirschner know providing meals has a direct connection to improved outcomes — socially, physically, psychologically and academically.

Under Oregon's Community Eligibility Provision, 340 schools across the state offer school-wide meals at no charge, without collecting applications, due to the overall need in the community.

Research has shown that among students who eat school meals regularly graduation and attendance rates are higher, test scores are higher and referrals to the nurses office and for discipline decrease, Kirschner said.

When meals are offered at no charge, far more children eat and the benefits are more widespread, she said. 

Additionally, school-wide meals can help reduce a stigma around students for having less money.

"Kids are very aware of not just their own family's financial situation, but the financial situation of their friends and classmates," Kirschner said. "Everyone eating together at lunch is a real way to reduce layering of kids by income. In the cafeteria, everyone is seen as equal."

School-wide meals in Salem-Keizer

While not all Salem-Keizer schools offer school-wide meals, many high-needs schools like Auburn Elementary in Salem do.

"Because kids don't need lunch cards, there's no zapping of the card because there’s no payment at all," Principal Katie Shumway said. "We don't have to separate the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' " 

Shumway said she can see the look of relief on kids' faces when they get to school and realize they don't have to worry about eating breakfast. She's also seen plenty of behavior issues resolved by asking the simple questions," Have you eaten?" and "Are you hungry?" 

Having school-wide meals also takes away the burden on staff who would otherwise may have to check students' balances to see if they have enough in their accounts to get a meal. While Oregon has made some statewide changes to this in recent years, when it has happened, it can be very hurtful to a child.

"No adult, I think, would want to food shame a kid, but those things happen accidentally when staff are trying to be like, 'I'm sorry, your balance is negative, I can't give you pizza,' " Shumway said.

"That's a really unfortunate position to put an adult in, and a kid in who doesn't understand, 'Why can't I have the chicken nuggets everyone else has?' " she said. "We don't have that problem. Everybody just gets fed."

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Educators are especially worried about children facing hunger outside of the school day. Nights, weekends and seasonal breaks are all times when the students may not have access to nutritious food. 

Auburn Elementary is one of the sites where all students under the age of 18 — regardless of ties to the school — can get free lunches over summer and winter breaks. The school has also started a weekend pantry to help families get by between school days.

"We talk about universal supports for academics and behavior, right? Like all students get access to core reading instruction, all kids get access to math … we teach them all social skills," Shumway said. "They should all have access to food. That shouldn't be a thing that some students don't get to have."

Action at the Oregon Legislature

For Rep. Margaret Doherty, D-Tigard, the goal is for all K-12 students in Oregon to have free breakfast and lunch available at school.

She's helping lead that charge to approve universal breakfast and lunch statewide. But she's aware the cost, though not yet estimated, would be extremely expensive.

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And while federal funding pays for a large portion of the bill, states and individual district do have to contribute substantially. 

For example, in the 2017 session, the Oregon Legislature stopped reduced-price lunches and switched to free lunches for multiple schools in the state, which cost $2.47 million per biennium. Doherty said that amount still hasn't been sufficient to meet the current need experienced by districts.

Another push at the Capitol this coming session will be for an expansion of the state's Community Eligibility Provisions to include more of Oregon's 1,200+ schools. This is the program that currently allows 340 schools to provide free meals to all kids due to the overall community need.

The third push this session would expand the state's Breakfast After the Bell program.

Oregon lawmakers approved House Bill 2846 in 2015, which allowed Oregon schools to serve breakfast after the first bell of the day. As long as students are still being taught, schools can serve meals for up to 15 minutes and still consider that period to be instructional time.

"Good nutrition goes hand in hand with good learning and good behavior," Doherty said. Doherty previously worked as a teacher and witnessed a lot of these instances first hand. "It really kind of is an 'it takes a village' kind of thing."

Federal, financial limitations

Under the Obama administration, new guidelines were set for school meals with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.

The act raised the standards of foods allowed to be served in schools. It also set required deadlines to reduce things such as sodium. 

But last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would give school administrators more wiggle room to serve things like white breads, biscuits, tortillas and white pastas when they were previously required to obtain a waiver to serve non-whole grain-rich breads and pastas. 

The rollback also extended the sodium reduction deadline for schools by two years. 

And since school meals overwhelmingly serve students from low-income families, this could perpetuate a reality in which nutritious food is only available to those who can afford it. 

"We think kids deserve the very best we can give them, particularly for kids whose families are struggling," Oregon advocate Kirschner said. 

There is also concern that families affected by the partial government shutdown will reach a point they will need meal assistance.

Salem-Keizer spokeswoman Lillian Govus said students whose parents are furloughed can apply for free and reduced lunches. 

Kirschner said Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon was told funds are in place for school meals for the next few months and students won't see a disruption at least through March.

However, it has impacted the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with all of February SNAP benefits being sent out early and no more benefits distributed that month.

But in addition to these changes, Oregon policymakers will need to consider things like added costs to pay for more meals, as well as ways they can generally reduce the stigma associated with applying for free and reduced meals. 

Any changes to school meal programs require thought into the cost per meal, per student, per school and per district. It requires staffing, storage and scheduling. And all of this has to tie together into a plate of food kids are willing to eat. 

As Kirschner put it: "The food doesn't become an actual meal until they eat it."

Contact reporter Natalie Pate at npate@StatesmanJournal.com, 503-399-6745 or follow her on Twitter @Nataliempate or Facebook at www.Facebook.com/nataliepatejournalist.

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