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SACRAMENTO (AP) — A surprising statistic awaited Bannon Creek Elementary School principal Linda Wilkinson when she returned to school this fall: Around 425 of the school’s 600 students now qualify for free and reduced-price school meals, up about 8 percent since school let out for the summer.
The students in a lower middle-class area just a few miles from the state Capitol are among more than 3.1 million California public school students — more than half the students in the state — who are now enrolled in a school meal program because of their family’s poverty status, the state Department of Education said Tuesday.
The number of meals served jumped a record 4.5 percent in the last school year, more than four times the average yearly increase. The rate is expected to climb even more steeply this year as families cope with the economic crisis.
School districts are feeling the brunt of it, too, as they struggle to feed more kids nutritious meals without more money from the state. Yet the meals are critically important to the children’s academic success, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said.
“This is as basic and essential a service as the government needs to provide,” O’Connell said during a visit to Banning Elementary School on Tuesday. “This is a key component to closing the achievement gap.”
As more children became eligible and signed up for the program, the state ran out of money to repay school districts starting in May, O’Connell said.
And that was before the worst of the downturn hit. This year, the program is forecast to run out of funding even sooner, straining school districts that must cut back on other programs to pay for the meals.
O’Connell appealed Tuesday to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders for an additional $31 million to make up the difference.
But that seems unlikely as lawmakers struggle to fill an $11.2 billion budget deficit in the current fiscal year that is expected to grow to $28 billion in the next year and a half if they don’t take serious action.
Any solutions to the budget shortfall are also likely to hit schools, since education accounts for more than half the state budget. Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting another $2.5 billion from schools in 2008-09.
But he also is seeking to give school districts more flexibility in how they spend the money they are given, including for programs such as school nutrition, said Camille Anderson, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture pays the vast majority of the cost of the meals — anywhere from $2.17 to $2.57 per meal — through the National School Lunch Program. California pays around 25 cents extra per meal, partly for extras approved by the state Legislature over the years: requiring them to serve more fresh fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods, and placing limits on the amount of fat and sugar.
Children whose families make less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or below $40,000 a year for a family of four, are eligible.
Nationally, the actual number of children enrolled in the program declined by 0.5 percent this September compared with last year as many states saw student enrollment rates declining overall, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program. The agency did not have figures comparing the rate of enrollment, or state-by-state rate comparisons.
But as the economic crisis has spread, everyone from charities to schools are feeling the burden, said Jim Weill, president of the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center. Luckily, the federal program is based on entitlement, so schools are not limited in the number of students they can serve, he said.
“The program’s elastic. As eligibility grows, the program grows to meet the need. So the schools can get reimbursed for the additional kids,” he said. “The schools not only should be able to pay for this, they have a responsibility to do it.”
The federal program pays the same rate to all 48 contiguous states, regardless of their cost of living — a system O’Connell has been lobbying California’s congressional delegation to change when the law comes up for reauthorization next year, said Phyllis Bramson-Paul, director of nutrition services for the state Department of Education.
O’Connell said he’s also hoping President-elect Barack Obama includes money for education in his proposed federal economic stimulus package.
The chicken sandwiches, carrot sticks, milk and oranges first-graders lined up to receive at Bannon Creek Elementary on Tuesday were likely the most nutritious meal of the day for many students, nutrition advocates said.
Numerous studies also have shown that good nutrition is an essential ingredient to learning, said Ken Hecht, executive director of Oakland-based California Food Policy Advocates.
“This would be the worst time to cut back on this guarantee — when children need it most,” he said.
The students in a lower middle-class area just a few miles from the state Capitol are among more than 3.1 million California public school students — more than half the students in the state — who are now enrolled in a school meal program because of their family’s poverty status, the state Department of Education said Tuesday.
The number of meals served jumped a record 4.5 percent in the last school year, more than four times the average yearly increase. The rate is expected to climb even more steeply this year as families cope with the economic crisis.
School districts are feeling the brunt of it, too, as they struggle to feed more kids nutritious meals without more money from the state. Yet the meals are critically important to the children’s academic success, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said.
“This is as basic and essential a service as the government needs to provide,” O’Connell said during a visit to Banning Elementary School on Tuesday. “This is a key component to closing the achievement gap.”
As more children became eligible and signed up for the program, the state ran out of money to repay school districts starting in May, O’Connell said.
And that was before the worst of the downturn hit. This year, the program is forecast to run out of funding even sooner, straining school districts that must cut back on other programs to pay for the meals.
O’Connell appealed Tuesday to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders for an additional $31 million to make up the difference.
But that seems unlikely as lawmakers struggle to fill an $11.2 billion budget deficit in the current fiscal year that is expected to grow to $28 billion in the next year and a half if they don’t take serious action.
Any solutions to the budget shortfall are also likely to hit schools, since education accounts for more than half the state budget. Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting another $2.5 billion from schools in 2008-09.
But he also is seeking to give school districts more flexibility in how they spend the money they are given, including for programs such as school nutrition, said Camille Anderson, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture pays the vast majority of the cost of the meals — anywhere from $2.17 to $2.57 per meal — through the National School Lunch Program. California pays around 25 cents extra per meal, partly for extras approved by the state Legislature over the years: requiring them to serve more fresh fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods, and placing limits on the amount of fat and sugar.
Children whose families make less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or below $40,000 a year for a family of four, are eligible.
Nationally, the actual number of children enrolled in the program declined by 0.5 percent this September compared with last year as many states saw student enrollment rates declining overall, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program. The agency did not have figures comparing the rate of enrollment, or state-by-state rate comparisons.
But as the economic crisis has spread, everyone from charities to schools are feeling the burden, said Jim Weill, president of the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center. Luckily, the federal program is based on entitlement, so schools are not limited in the number of students they can serve, he said.
“The program’s elastic. As eligibility grows, the program grows to meet the need. So the schools can get reimbursed for the additional kids,” he said. “The schools not only should be able to pay for this, they have a responsibility to do it.”
The federal program pays the same rate to all 48 contiguous states, regardless of their cost of living — a system O’Connell has been lobbying California’s congressional delegation to change when the law comes up for reauthorization next year, said Phyllis Bramson-Paul, director of nutrition services for the state Department of Education.
O’Connell said he’s also hoping President-elect Barack Obama includes money for education in his proposed federal economic stimulus package.
The chicken sandwiches, carrot sticks, milk and oranges first-graders lined up to receive at Bannon Creek Elementary on Tuesday were likely the most nutritious meal of the day for many students, nutrition advocates said.
Numerous studies also have shown that good nutrition is an essential ingredient to learning, said Ken Hecht, executive director of Oakland-based California Food Policy Advocates.
“This would be the worst time to cut back on this guarantee — when children need it most,” he said.
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