Community Eligibility: Fighting Child
Hunger and Building Stronger School Meal Programs
By Anne
Fyffe
Kaylee, a
nine-year-old from Texas, speaks honestly to the importance of free meals at
school when she says that "when I go home, we don't have that much
food...when I come here, I can eat." Kaylee is just one of nearly
32
million children who rely on free or reduced-price school meals every day
at school.
The
Presbyterian Church (USA) has a long tradition of advocacy on behalf of
children and is committed to the goal of ending childhood hunger. The PC(USA)
recognizes the importance of federal nutrition programs, including school lunch
and breakfast programs, as part of the path to achieving this goal (
General Assembly Minutes, 1996, p.784).
Community
eligibility is a new opportunity for schools in areas that experience
high levels of poverty to provide free breakfast and lunch to
all of
their students. The community eligibility provision (CEP) was previously only
available in 11 states, but beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, all schools
nationwide that meet the 40 percent "identified student" threshold
will qualify to participate in this option. You can find a
list of eligible schools here. The deadline for school districts to notify their
state agency that they want to participate in CEP for the 2014-2015 school year
is June 30, 2014.
How Community Eligibility Works
Community eligibility is a win-win for students and schools.
Designed to help schools in high-poverty areas, it ensures that all children
have access to healthy food at school. Community eligibility removes the
families’ and schools’ burden of submitting paper applications to enroll
students in school meal programs in high-poverty communities. Instead, schools
are reimbursed through a formula based on the number of "identified students"
who participate in additional federal benefit programs such as the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly the Food Stamp Program) or Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance, among others. Typically,
more than 75 percent of students who go to schools that qualify for community
eligibility receive free or
reduced-price meals, so this is a great opportunity to make sure that 100
percent of children are getting the food they need to thrive.
Benefits for
Children, Schools, and Communities
Community eligibility has been successful in increasing the
number of students eating meals each day and in changing the way that schools
provide food service, according to the Food
Research and Action Center (FRAC). School districts can increase
meal program participation, bring staff costs down, eliminate bad debt from
unpaid student meal fees, and cut down on administrative costs associated with
printing and processing paper applications.
School food service workers will no longer have to confront,
and sometimes take food away from children who have unpaid fees on their
accounts and administrators and families will no longer have to bear the burden
of submitting paper applications. Most importantly, this program removes the
stigma of receiving free meals at school and children will no longer have
trouble paying attention in class because they are hungry.
Schenectady City School District, NY is one example of a
school district that has successfully implemented community eligibility
district-wide, making both breakfast and lunch available to all children at no
charge, and as a result, they experienced growth in both their breakfast
and lunch programs. They also attribute the changes in their nutrition programs
to substantially improving their attendance rates. Larry Spring, superintendent
of Schenectady City Schools, sees community eligibility as an opportunity to
level the playing field for all students and address issues such as racial
inequality and food insecurity as part of a larger city-wide equity agenda.
Take Action!
Here's what you can do now, before the June 30th deadline
for school districts to notify their state agency that they want to participate
in CEP for the 2014-2015 school year:
- See
if your School District is eligible: Check out the list of eligible schools in your state!
- Contact
your school's Administration: If your school is eligible, contact the
administrators in your school district and ask them if they plan to participate
in CEP next year.
- Write
an op-ed: Create some public discussion in your
community around CEP by clicking here!
- Learn
more about community eligibility: Utilize these CEP
resources from FRAC.
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| Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities |
Anne Fyffe is a Summer Fellow at the Office of Public Witness. She will graduate from The Ohio State University in August with a degree in Public Affairs and hopes to begin seminary in 2015.
It is not too late for eligible schools in your community to
notify their state agencies that they want to participate in Community
Eligibility and provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students for
the 2014-2015 school year!
