Many Families Depend on Free and Reduced School Lunches

Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 -- 1:00 PM

(By Erin Gretzinger and Maddie Bergstrom, Wisconsin Public Radio) The COVID-19 pandemic forced students to pack up their bags and switch from whiteboards to laptops.

According to Erin Gretzinger and Maddie Bergstrom with Wisconsin Public Radio, empty schools meant empty cafeterias. Until the pandemic, Jana Goodman, a mother of three and longtime resident of Waukesha, never used free school lunches.

Even though she said her family was always "one broken down car away from a disaster," her only school-age child at the time, Jacob, did not qualify for free and reduced meals. Then the pandemic sent the Goodmans’ finances into a tailspin.

After 15 years in the medical field as an administrative employee, she was furloughed for most of the summer in 2020. Her husband, who works three jobs, saw income from his most profitable gig as a DJ plummet as people stayed home.

To hold onto their house and to build a strong financial base for their children’s future, the Goodmans used any assistance they could to stay afloat. Roughly 1 in 5 children face food insecurity in Wisconsin.

For families like the Goodmans already struggling to pay their bills before the pandemic, the situation quickly became dire. Schools quickly pivoted to fill the gap thanks to federal waivers that allowed districts to run more flexible food service programs.

One key waiver permitted schools to opt into federal programs normally restricted by income-based eligibility, allowing them to serve free meals to all students. The Seamless Summer Option, along with similar federal programs, gave schools, even those meeting virtually, the ability to provide free meals for all students during the pandemic.

What started out as an emergency relief provision has since turned into a nationwide experiment, one testing the benefits and costs of offering universal free meals to an unprecedented number of U.S. students, regardless of family income.

In recent months, universal free meals have garnered approval from schools, anti-hunger advocates and legislators across Wisconsin who argue that breakfast and lunch, like textbooks, should be available at no cost to any K-12 student.

But the federal waiver that permitted universal free school meals expired June 30, and legislation to extend or permanently implement a free meals program has stalled at the state and federal level, leaving an uncertain future for free school meals in Wisconsin.

And some elected officials here strongly object to the idea. The School District of Waukesha, where Goodman’s son attends school, became the epicenter of that debate nationally, when for a brief time it was the only district in Wisconsin to reject free meals for all.

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