Time to focus on learning and not whether or not there's food on the table
With school lunches leading to outlawing kindness in many places, Baltimore public schools will take the historic step of making all school lunches free. Starting this week, if you attend a public school in Baltimore, regardless of how many bootstraps you own or do not own, you will be offered free breakfast and lunch.
Baltimore is among a handful of districts in Maryland taking advantage of the opportunity that was opened to schools nationwide last year. Maryland schools are able to adopt the program under state legislation passed this year in the General Assembly.
Del. Keith Haynes, chief sponsor of the legislation, said Tuesday during an announcement at Beechfield Elementary/Middle School that the law is the "great equalizer" for city students, closing one more gap that exists from socio-economic disparities.
The connections between nutrition and learning are well-studied and documented. It's a no-brainer. Baltimore took advantage of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) which amended the free and reduced price meals eligibility guidelines created under the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. Besides feeding children it is important to note that there are profound socio-economic ramifications of equalizing children's meals. Haynes pointed out that not only does the option, called "community eligibility," eliminate a stigma that students can feel if they qualify for free lunch, but it also eliminates barriers for students, such as those who are homeless and can't get paperwork in, who never have the chance to qualify."We have some students who, if they don't get it at school, they don't get it at all," Haynes said.
According to the Baltimore Sun article, sixth-grader Katia Stanford had the best surprised response. "I think it's good, and kind of crazy because kids should have been getting free lunch from the beginning if they knew kids was hungry," she said. Yes. It is pretty crazy that children have been going hungry in our publicly funded institutions for decades. Governor Larry Hogan was too busy building a children's prison to give a response.For more discussion head over to OldRedWolf's diary on this here.