Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
Before the first bell rings, thousands of kids across Colorado line up for breakfast in their school cafeterias.
For some, that tray of eggs, fruit, and milk is the first real meal they’ve had since lunch the day before. For everyone, it’s the start of a better, more focused school day, and it has an impact that lasts much longer than a quiet stomach.
Colorado, like a growing number of states, has created programs to provide school breakfasts and lunches not just for kids who come from the neediest of families, but for every child.
There are thousands of students across Aurora’s two school districts that depend on the service, hailing from all kinds of families.
If you scratch your head about why the state would pay for lunch for some children who come from very financially comfortable and even wealthy families, you’re not alone.
When Colorado was near starting its version of a universal free school lunch program in 2022, the arguments against such a venture were compelling. But the arguments for such a program, then and especially now, are convincing.
The evidence is in, across Colorado and the nation: Universal free lunch programs are hugely beneficial for everyone.
This year, voters are being asked ballot questions focused on how to fund Colorado’s universal school lunch program. The Sentinel Colorado is now a non-profit organization. Because of that, The Sentinel cannot endorse election questions, but the newspaper can weigh in on the issue of whether the state’s universal lunch program has merits, and it clearly does.
Research and evidence show unequivocally that these universal lunch programs are one of the nation’s quiet success stories. Every school day, more than 29.7 million students eat a school lunch and 14.6 million eat a school breakfast, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The vast majority of those meals are served to low-income households. Wealthier children often bring lunch from home or, as they get older, leave school grounds to spend lunch money at nearby convenience stores or fast food, according to a variety of juvenile behavior and nutrition researchers.
So here’s what happens when everyone gets school breakfast, lunch, or both.
First off, cranky, lethargic kids coming to school hungry immediately start changing into better, more successful students.
Decades of research shows that well-nourished children learn better. Students who participate in school breakfast programs have higher attendance and test scores and are less likely to be late to school or sent to the principal’s office for behavioral problems, according to reports from the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and a host of similar research papers and journals.
But there’s more. Researchers in North Carolina revealed that when that state started offering free breakfast to all students, it resulted in measurably better academic performance across the board, not just among low-income families. Researchers in other states have seen similar results from both universal school breakfast and lunch programs. One of those studies comes from public schools in Greeley.
One of the reasons why, experts say, is that, for the most part, what the school cafeteria is serving kids is nutritionally a much better meal than just a Pop-Tart in a baggie or a big bowl of high-sugar cereal at home.
A national US Department of Agriculture assessment found that students who ate school meals were getting better nutrition than their peers who didn’t participate in school meals. The conclusion there and from other researchers is that when kids are regularly exposed to healthier meals at school, they eat better when they’re not at school.
Research from as far back as 2009 shows that students who regularly eat school meals consume more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy dairy foods, and they are less likely to suffer from nutrient deficiencies.
Even more striking, participation in free or reduced-price school lunch programs improves student health. One study, published in the Journal of Econometrics, showed that children participating in the program significantly reduced child obesity. Offering breakfast and lunch at no cost to all students also leads to fewer visits to the school nurse, measurably better mental health, and lower rates of anxiety and depression, at least three national studies show.
The programs also work to de-stress kids already stressed out about how the “have-nots” appear to those who have plenty. Under traditional means-tested systems, children who pay for lunch sit next to those who don’t, and everyone knows the difference. Universal meal programs end that stigma.
When Vermont implemented free school meals for all kids, teachers reported improved school climate, greater readiness to learn, and fewer visible income differences among students. The students and their families reported that the change made students feel more equal.
Educators, researchers, families and certainly students know that these programs work. They lift all children from hunger, improve their learning, strengthen their health, and unite school communities.
The evidence is overwhelming.
Colorado’s universal free-school-lunch program isn’t charity, it’s smart public policy.
Please stop calling this “Free lunch”!! It is most certainly NOT free. This is a subsidized meal program where the cost is deferred to the tax payers. Some may find this fine to support others may not, but let’s be honest about that fact that there is a cost to this program.
Unfortunately, this program is taking on the responsibility that should be on the parents. So, who’s learning from this? Not the kids taking advantage of the program or their parents who are milking it. Just keep feeding the bears and perpetuate the dependancy on entitlements.