← School Business Insider
Loading summary
Transcript63 lines
- [00:01]
John Brucato
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of School Business Insider. Today, we're diving into one of the most critical, yet often under the radar issues impacting student success. School nutrition. I'm thrilled to be joined by Crystal Fitzsimmons, Interim president of the Food Research and Action center, better known as frac. FRAC is a national leader in the fight to end hunger and improve nutrition. And ASBO International has been proud to stand alongside them in the Healthy School Meals for All coalition, pushing for policies and ensure every child has access to the meals they need to learn and thrive. Today, we'll talk about why school meals are under threat in the latest federal budget negotiations, how the community eligibility provision could be weakened, and what that means for your district. Crystal will also share resources you can use right now to improve meal access, communicate with families, and advocate effectively with lawmakers. Crystal, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:30]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Thanks, John. I'm really excited to be here with you.
- [01:33]
John Brucato
Great. So could you just give our listeners a little bit of your background and Willi, what FRAC is and what you guys do?
- [01:40]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Absolutely. So I have a master's in social work. I actually come to my work from an interest and passion in ending poverty. The federal nutrition programs really are an incredible strategy to reduce hunger in the United States. And so I've been at FRAC for about 27 years now. Most of my time at FRAC has been focused on the child nutrition programs. And back in July, I took on the role as interim president. FRAC is a national anti hunger organization and we really focus on the federal nutrition programs as a core strategy to reduce hunger in the United States. States. We want to make sure that everyone in the United States has access to a healthy diet with dignity. And that leads us to the school nutrition program. So it's really do provide an important opportunity to get kids the nutrition they need to grow and thrive.
- [02:34]
John Brucato
Wonderful. So how has your responsibilities and your focus changed since moving into interim president?
- [02:41]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Well, it's changed quite a bit. I get to actually work on more programs than the child nutrition program, so I've been doing more work on snap and I get to do more work on fundraising and on communications and work with the incredible team that we have at FRAC on all the different issues that we work on.
- [02:58]
John Brucato
Great, great. So let's talk about really what's kind of happening across the nation. Can you tell me what's going on in Congress right now that could really impact school nutrition?
- [03:08]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah. So right now Congress is looking at doing what they call a budget reconciliation. And that is where the Senate and the House take a look at how they're spending money. And then they direct different committees to reduce their expenditures or they may decide to make tax cuts. So right now Congress is thinking about doing that. So the Senate and the House are both working on it and they have actually suggested pretty significant cuts to federal, federal nutrition programs. On the House side, they've actually are looking at about $330 billion in cuts from education programs. And interestingly, the child nutrition programs are part of the House Education and Workforce Committee. And so that is part of the conversation that is happening right now. And so there's proposals to make cuts to school nutrition, there's proposals to make cuts to SNAP and Medicaid as well. And because of the way kids qualify for free and reduced price meals, that can also impact the school nutrition program. So there's a lot of conversations that are happening in D.C. about how to to rethink and redo some of the things related to the school nutrition programs in order to cut costs to them.
- [04:29]
John Brucato
So I have to say, I mean, cutting school nutrition just seems like a non starter to me. Maybe it's just my own naivete, but feeding kids seems to be an apolitical issue. I would assume. So why is something like this that's so critical for students across the nation, whether it's a blue, red or purple state? Why is this on the chopping block?
- [04:50]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
So I can agree with you more. First off, feeding our kids in this country is the most important thing. Making sure that kids have access to the nutrition they need is critical and it historically has had bipartisan support. I think they are looking at making cuts and I think it really is about wanting to reduce cuts within the federal budget. But I think it is incredibly short sighted because if we are not making sure that kids have access to the nutrition they need while they're in school, we're actually wasting our money on education because kids who are in school, who are hungry, cannot learn. And they also are going to be disruptive in the classroom as well.
- [05:38]
John Brucato
Right. And I mean, it's such a small fraction of federal spending. Are they just looking for anything to cut? Is this low hanging fruit to them. Have you, have you maybe talked about focusing their efforts elsewhere? Like, what has that conversation look like?
- [05:51]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, so we are having lots of conversations with different members of Congress about the importance of the programs and the need to protect and strengthen them. One of the things that happened during the pandemic, and I think most of the people listening and probably are aware of this, is that schools were able to offer free meals to all their students for a few years during the school year. And I think it really did shine a light on how important and how valuable the school nutrition programs are. And during that time and post pandemic, we have actually really increased the number of schools that are able to offer free meals to all students. And so that is something that they are actually looking at, reducing the number of schools that are able to offer free meals to all their students through the community eligibility provision.
- [06:40]
John Brucato
Wow, this seems very backwards to me. But speaking of which, can you talk about what the community eligibility provision is and what threats there are to that in this budget process?
- [06:51]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Absolutely. So the community eligibility provision is relatively new. It went nationwide in 2014 and it allows high need schools to offer free meals to all of their students. And year after year schools have. The number of schools who have been adopting community eligibility has grown so that we have about over half of the schools in the country who participate in school lunch and school breakfast actually offering free meals to all their students. In order to do it, you have to actually meet an eligibility threshold. And so this is going to be a little wonky, but basically there's lots.
- [07:30]
John Brucato
Speaking to the right people. Crystal?
- [07:32]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Oh, good, good. So there are a couple of different ways that kids qualify for free school meals, and some of them go through a school meal application process. But a lot of kids are automatically eligible for free school meals and certified automatically. And that is because their household participates in SNAP or tanf. In some states it includes Medicaid or they're homeless or in foster care or migrant or Head Start. And so those kids are automatically certified. So it's a subsection of the poverty within the school. In order to qualify for community eligibility, right now, 25% of your students, or 1 in 4, really has to come through eligibility through those mechanisms. But that's actually a subset of the poverty in the school because more kids would come in through the school meal application process. So when you talk about 25% of the students, what you're really talking about is about 40% of the students. So more aligned with kind of where the title 1 school wide designation is. But what they're talking about doing is basically bumping that up to 60% of students being certified outside the application process, which means the schools would be about 100% eligible for free. And so really, they would be making 24,000 schools no longer eligible for community eligibility. And those schools have an enrollment of about 12,000 kids.
- [09:06]
John Brucato
Wow. So, you know, I'm thinking, if I'm one of those schools, how do I explain to my community who has been used to free meals, which in some communities may be the only full meal that a student gets in a day? How do I explain that to a community member?
- [09:23]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
I think that is really difficult to explain to a community member because I think families really do rely on free school. I think families are really feeling the squeeze right now with food inflation and increased housing costs. And families are really struggling right now. We've seen food insecurity go up. But the interesting thing about this is it really is about the families who don't quite qualify for free meals. So it's the kids who qualify for reduced price. It's the kids who are 300% or below the poverty line, whose families are still struggling to make ends meet, but don't quite qualify for free meals. And so I think it is a really difficult conversation for administrators to have with families. And so that, I think, really does speak to the fact that we need to be organizing and mobilizing and let Congress know how important it is to maintain the community eligibility program the way it is already structured.
- [10:23]
John Brucato
Right. Are there any kind of increased income verification requirements being proposed through Congress in terms of maybe modifying this program?
- [10:32]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, so that's one of the other things that is in the mix. So if you're not a community eligibility school, then you are doing a school meal application process each year. What usually happens is that most schools verify about 3% of the school meal applications that they process. One of the proposals that was circulating around on the how side was to actually increase that verification requirement to 100%. And that obviously is a pretty dramatic increase, a pretty dramatic increase to the amount of administrative work that schools are facing. But in addition to that, we know the verification process causes eligible children to fall through the cracks because the families may not get into the school to verify their inflammation, or they might not get the letter, or there may be language barriers. And so, as a result, we do see eligible kids fall through the cracks during the verification process. And so increasing verification requirements really increases administrative work for schools and limits kids access to school meals. And, you know, schools really are not designed to do that kind of verification, like we want our school nutrition departments to be spending their time focused on feeding kids and providing the healthiest meals possible, not processing paperwork.
- [12:02]
John Brucato
And to your earlier point, what is starting out as a, as marketed as a cost saving measure from Congress really is adding more costs down the line, whether it be through schools not being able to educate their children appropriately because they're coming to school hungry. And to your point, the administrative burden, which is going to create more of a cost in time and money trying to do verification for up to 100% of the application. So this kind of just seems backwards. I don't know if that's the right term, but it just seems like we're not headed in the right direction when it comes to child nutrition.
- [12:40]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Because you could also think about it as an unfunded mandate because schools are not going to get additional resources to process and to verify these applications. And as a result, the funding that comes from the school meal reimbursement rate and schools already struggle to break even with the current rate. We don't need to be adding administrative costs to school nutrition programs.
- [13:09]
John Brucato
It may be a little too early for this, but are you seeing individual states kind of step in to potentially fill the gap where the federal money may be reduced?
- [13:19]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, so I haven't seen schools states do that yet for the upcoming P's, but I will say back in 1996, when they cut federal reimbursements through welfare reform, a couple states did step up and provide additional reimbursement for school meals. And we've seen schools actually pass statewide healthy school meals for all policies. So we have a handful of states who are doing that. We have states who are helping schools increase, helping schools participate in community eligibility by providing additional resources like Washington and New York. So we do see school states stepping in to help. These changes, I think would have such a dramatic impact that it would really be difficult for states to be able to fully cover these changes. But the other thing that I think is really important for everybody to understand is there's a reason why we have federal school nutrition programs. We want kids in Mississippi to have access to the same high quality meals as the kids in Washington or the kids in Delaware and the kids in New Mexico. And so, you know, states have varying degrees of resources and political will. And so we need the federal nutrition programs to really operate the same way for kids because kids need the same thing. They all need access to healthy, nutritious and appealing meals at school.
- [14:52]
John Brucato
Right. So it's really the federal government coming in and creating some kind of equity across every single state. Because to your point, every single state may have different resources, different priorities. So this is really filling that gap, but looks like it may be stripped away depending on how this budget process goes.
- [15:08]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Well, I'm incredibly hopeful, John, that if everybody weighs in and lets Congress know how important these programs are, that we will be able to push back on these attacks. And I will say this is not the first time people have proposed the CEP cut or the increase in verification requirements, and we have been able to successfully push back on them in the past. And I think we can do it again if we all work together.
- [15:35]
John Brucato
Great. So can you tell me a little bit more about the Healthy School Meals for All coalition and how ASBO's participating with you guys and really what's been going on lately?
- [15:47]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah. Well, I have to say ASBO is one of our favorite national partners, and we love working with you guys in the Healthy School Meals for All Coalition and in many other ways as well. So we really do value and appreciate your partnership and leadership. The Healthy School Meals for All Coalition really came together as the pandemic was wrapping up, and we all realized that offering meals to all students at no charge really was the way to go. So we piloted that during the pandemic across the country in almost every school. And everybody knew that it was a win, win, win. It was a win for schools. They had a lot less administrative work, and their kids were arriving in class well nourished and ready to learn. It was a win for parents because it reduced the amount of it reduced their food budget so that it helps struggling families make ends meet. And kids, it eliminated stigma and embarrassment in the cafeteria, some kids participating, some kids not participating. So it really was a win, win, win. And so we all decided a bunch of our national partners, including ASBO and education partners, health partners, child advocates, we decided to come together to form the Healthy School Meals for All co and to continue to talk about how important being able to offer free meals to all the students is. And so we have been doing lots of lobbying together. We've been sharing communications and messaging and continuing to really tell the story that Healthy School Meals for All is the way the school nutrition program should operate.
- [17:29]
John Brucato
You know, it's seldom do we get a nationwide case study in terms of what it would look like if every student was fed equitably across the country. So is that like a main sticking point? Like, we've seen this in action. We see the value of Feeding all kids equitably. Is that one of your main talking points? Tell me a little bit more about that.
- [17:49]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, so we have made a tremendous amount of progress towards that. And as I mentioned earlier, about half the schools in the country are now offering free meals to all students. But you are absolutely right. The pilot that we had during the pandemic really proved what we all knew. Like we've been working with schools to offer free breakfast. Community eligibility really was kind of the first time that we saw schools being able to really implement free school meals for all. And what we saw with community eligibility is each year the number of schools who were adopting it grew. The number of kids who were able to benefit grew. And it just really does decrease the administrative work and allow schools to focus on feeding kids and providing healthy meals meals. It gets rid of unpaid school meal debt that schools were really struggling with beforehand. And so that pilot, I think we do point to it and we do talk about how that is the vision that we need to put forth for school meals.
- [18:54]
John Brucato
Yeah, one of the silver linings, I guess, of a global pandemic. So it's so encouraging to hear Asbo and Freck really joining forces to advocate on behalf of kids for healthy school meals for all. Tell me a little bit more about what school business officials specifically can do to advocate and why it's so critical right now.
- [19:17]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, absolutely. So I think of the school business officials as one of the strongest voices for school meals. You know, I come from an anti hunger perspective. You know, we work with child advocates. But school business officials really do bring the financial voice and they can talk about how the programs operate. They can talk about the increase in costs that they're going to face if they're going to have to verify 100% of their applications. They can talk about the impact that it will have on their school nutrition finances if they were no longer able to offer free meals to all students. And so I would just say that voice, that financial voice about what is really how it's playing out financially for school districts across the country really is an important voice that Congress needs to hear because it is a very different voice from maybe an educator or a child advocate. And there are real impacts to the financial decisions that school districts have to make if they were to move forward with these proposals.
- [20:25]
John Brucato
And to your earlier point, I mean, I would assume that the more different voices that Congress is hearing, hopefully the more seriously they'll take this issue.
- [20:35]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
I think that's absolutely right. There's so many different ways to talk about the school nutrition programs. And there's so many different perspectives and the school business officials, I think have a really important perspective to bring. But yes, everybody needs to be talking about why it's so important. We have lots of parents who talk about it, we have lots of kids who are out there talking about it. And the school business officials and other administrators, I think are critical to the debate and conversation.
- [21:04]
John Brucato
You gave some examples of how some school districts have been moving towards offering free meals for all. Can you give some examples or a successful use case of maybe a school or a district advocacy that has really made a lasting impact?
- [21:20]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, so I think one of the things that I see some schools doing which I think can be incredibly impactful, is to actually organize site visits and have congressional members come out and visit their school nutrition programs and see the quality of the meal that's being served. I think one of the exciting things about school nutrition too is that we have made so many strides on quality and nutrition and appeal that I think it's really good for elected officials to see that and to understand it. But getting them out into a school and seeing the school nutrition programs and sometimes people will even organize kind of a roundtable conversation. Going back to your point, John, about having different voices. Like you can actually invite your senator to come out to your school nutrition to a school, see the school meal program, and then maybe do kind of a roundtable conversation that includes teachers and the superintendent and the business official and the school nutrition director and some parents and really kind of educate your elected officials about how important the program is. Because I do think hearing those voices can be incredibly helpful. And we do have guides on how to organize those kinds of things on our website. And I would assume ASBO has those kind of resources as well.
- [22:45]
John Brucato
I have to imagine inviting an elected official out to see your operation happening in real time is so much more impactful than going to their office and just kind of speaking about it in theoreticals. Right. I mean, your congressmen or senators are able to kind of get into the weeds and really see a day to day operation of how school nutrition should or maybe should not function. And hopefully something like that would influence their decision kind of moving forward as they put the budget together for the following year.
- [23:17]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's absolutely right. But we do have to do both because you can't always get them out to your site and the timing might be a little bit off. And they often do it when they're back in their district or in their state because there's A congressional resource recess. Sorry. But yes, absolutely. Seeing these programs on the ground and how they operate and the positive impact they have can just, you know, really build support for them.
- [23:45]
John Brucato
So you mentioned you have some advocacy tools available. What other specific resources does FRAC provide for school district leaders to. To advocate to quantify their need?
- [23:57]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, so we have advocacy resources. So we actually make it really easy for you to email your members of Congress. We have what we call the. Our phone to action. And you can actually easily send an email. We have that up on our website right now where you can just put in your name, you can personalize it if you want, or you can just send it and it'll send it to your members of your senators and your. Your House members. So we have that resource. We have talking points. We do webinars on advocacy. We actually have our annual conference coming up in May, which is an opportunity to learn more on how to do advocacy around the nutrition programs. We do advocacy alerts, and we have, like, a monthly newsletter that lifts up these issues, and we do webinars. So we have a whole range of resources that anyone can tap into to help support their nutrition programs or their advocacy around them.
- [24:56]
John Brucato
That's great. You know, being able to speak to your legislators is one thing, but leaning on your families and community is another. You know, we talked about how having multiple different voices at the table is so critical. Do you have any tools for districts to leverage communicating with their families or communities? What does that look like?
- [25:18]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, so a lot of our webinars and toolkits will talk about best practices for communicating with families. And so I think, you know, getting more accessing the resources that we put out, A lot of those pieces include ways for families engagement and community communication. So, you know, the webinars, toolkits, sometimes there's sample messaging for even, like, robocalls around things. So I think we can. We could also follow up and share some more resources with you all as well. But I think those are some of the resources that we have that could be really helpful for families.
- [26:01]
John Brucato
That's great. And, you know, school business officials are most likely data people. How can school business officials use data in messaging to support school meal access?
- [26:13]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, so on the advocacy front, I think, you know, the first biggest question is, how many schools do you have in your district who are participating in community eligibility? And if they increase the percentage for that up to 60% from 25%, what would that mean for your school district? How many schools would drop out of community eligibility? And then how Many kids would be impacted. I think one of the other things that business officials are likely to be able to calculate is the actual cost, expected increased cost that they will see if they have to process more school meal applications. So that is, I think, a really important resource. So the school business officials actually have first front line of sight really on the school nutrition. And so they can also talk about what offering free school meals to all students can really do to improve economies of scale and reduce some of the costs that they're seeing in the school cafeteria. But all of those numbers, I think are incredibly helpful to communicate to members of Congress as they are having this ongoing conversation and debate about cutting school meals.
- [27:30]
John Brucato
So I'd like to talk a little bit more about kind of budget impacts from your perspective. How does CEP help school business officials manage their budgets? I mean, you mentioned a couple already. But you know, what are some things that are low hanging fruit in terms of a course? You know, CEP helps with that budgetarily. But are there other things too that maybe aren't as obvious that could have major impacts on a school district budget?
- [27:54]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah. Well, so with cep, you get rid of the school meal application process. So the, if you do it district wide and if you do it in the schools, certain schools like you do it in half the schools, those schools don't have to collect school meal applications. So that dramatically reduces the cost of administrative costs to the school district because they're no longer having to process those applications. I think it adds stability because you actually know what your reimbursements are going to be. It increases participation in the program. And so that creates economies of scale. So you know, for the breakfast program, if you increase participation, you know that the amount of meals that you can claim for that staff person who's serving breakfast in the morning actually increases. And then it allows you to, you know, lower your cost per meal. It gives you more negotiating power when you're negotiating your contracts for food. But one of the things that I think is really important for people to understand about the school meals program is kind of this economies of scale. And the healthiest school nutrition programs are the ones that do have high participation. And offering free meals to all students is one great way to do it. Increasing breakfast is actually another great way to improve. And CEP is linked to increasing school breakfast participation. I would be remiss to not mention the after school supper program, which also can help increase school nutrition finances. But the changes that they're talking about really would increase those costs and communicating about them. I think is an important part of the advocacy on this.
- [29:43]
John Brucato
Can you tell me a little bit more about the after school supper program? I feel like we always talk about breakfast and lunch, but that, that's one that I don't think we, we visit too often. Can you tell me more about that program and how it's structured?
- [29:55]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah. So if schools are offering after school enrichment and programming, there is the after school supper and snack program and it is the suppers are available through the child and adult care food program. So school districts do have to operate a different program, but the meals are all reimbursed at the free rate. And so it can really help the school nutrition finances if they're participating in the program. And in order to qualify for after school suppers, the school has to have about 50% of the kids eligible for free or reduced price meals. Most schools who participate in community eligibility would be eligible, but they just need to confirm that. But yeah, it is a really important resource for schools both to make sure that kids have the nutrition they need to focus and learn throughout the after school programs which are really important part of educational enrichment. But then also it really does ease some of the financial burden on families because they can count on suppers in addition to breakfast and lunch.
- [31:02]
John Brucato
That's great. That's nice to know. There's another leg to that stool of supporting up child nutrition. Can you talk to me a little bit more about some operational advantages of universal school meals? We talked what some direct budget implications are, but what about just really the operations in general?
- [31:19]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, so I mean, I think you don't have to track individual kids as much and you don't have to track buy free, reduced priced and paid. So it does make it a little bit easier when kids are going through the cafeteria. I do also want to say you can't understate how valuable it is to get rid of school meal debt. Before the pandemic, schools were really struggling with it. During the pandemic that disappeared, we saw school meal debt come back with a vengeance when schools went back to not being able to offer free meals to all their students. And it is a huge tremendous drag on school nutrition finances and it just makes it really difficult to operate the program. So that I think is a really important piece to lift up as well about the importance of cep.
- [32:14]
John Brucato
Yeah, I mean, my district, I know that we have seen a monumental increase in the amount of student or nutrition. Student nutrition debt rather on my general fund here just after the pandemic, it just seems to have increased like Fivefold. So I can, you know, imagine most districts are dealing with something very similar. So, you know, having the CEP in your district, you know, that alone is a huge time and cost saver right there. Can you tell me a little bit more about how nutrition programs tie into overall student success and school performance? I mean, we touched on a little bit earlier, but are you seeing direct correlations between, as you put it, a healthy school nutrition program and increased student performance in the classroom?
- [33:03]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, you know, I think this is so basic, and everybody, I think, understands that kids who are hungry cannot learn, cannot focus, cannot concentrate. But the research actually does indeed back that up. And so kids who participate in school breakfast and school lunch, you know, better attendance, higher test scores, able to focus more in the classroom, less disciplinary referrals, less visits to the nurse. Like, there is so much research on the value of school meals and making sure that kids are able to link up to the positive outcomes related to school meals is what offering free meals to all students really does. But yeah, and it really is a no brainer. Like, anyone who has kids knows that their kids are not going to do as well, and you may not even want to be around them when they're hungry.
- [34:02]
John Brucato
Good point. So what can school business leaders do today to protect school meals in their districts? I mean, we've talked about a lot already, and it sounds like there potentially is a lot at stake, but what can someone listening today do to protect those programs?
- [34:19]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, well, I think that the most important thing that they can do is weigh in with their congressional delegation. And so that includes on the Senate side and then also their member of Congress in the House, and let them know how important these programs are to their community, how they operate in their schools, and what this impact would mean for them. And I think going back to what you said earlier about not wanting to have to communicate this change to families that they serve. Like, they need to understand the impact that this will have for them. And so I think telling their story to policymakers, I mean, you know, you could do even more. You could do a letter to the editor, you could get active on social media. Like, those are all really positive things to talk about the nutrition programs. But the most important thing is to make sure that policymakers hear about the impact that this would have in their districts.
- [35:18]
John Brucato
And if somebody listening wants to get more involved with FRAC or asbo, what can they do to kind of activate themselves and become part of that advocacy effort?
- [35:29]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yeah, so on our website, which is frac.org, you can actually sign up for different resources and you can sign up to get newsletters and different communications from us. So that is a great way to come in and get resources from Frack. And you can sign up for webinars. Like all of our stuff is pretty much open to anybody who wants to tap into it. And then for asbo, I know Elica, who I get to work with quite a bit, puts together amazing resources for school business officials. And I would assume most of your members are kind of tapping into that as well.
- [36:07]
John Brucato
Absolutely. And for ASBO specific, you can go to asbointl.org advocacy and all advocacy items that ASBO participates in can be listed there, as well as a curated playlist of all School Business Insider advocacy related episodes. So Shameless Plug. So what does the road ahead look like for school nutrition policy? Crystal? I mean, we've gone through a lot already with what could be potentially negotiated or reduced. But you know, if you pull your crystal ball out, what do you think is going on in the next few months?
- [36:42]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Yes, well, so I think we have a lot of opportunities and challenges. And I can start with the challenges. I mean, we do have these proposals that are being, you know, discussed at the federal level and we actually need to do everything we can to stop them from moving forward. And so all the advocates that we talked about today will have a huge impact on that. But I also actually see lots of opportunities. Like when free school meals for all ended nationwide, I think it was at the start of the 2023 school year, but it might have been 2022. They all kind of blend together for me with the pandemic, but people didn't want to go back. So we saw a huge increase in the take up of community eligibility. And we also saw a number of states pass healthy school meals for all policies. And I think we have made so much progress. And I think people do understand that kids need access to nutritious food, breakfast and lunch while they're at school. And I think we are continuing to make progress there. So I think the way we talk about school meals, I think the way we're thinking about school meals, I think it's very different. Like these are always frac would have always loved for school meals to be free for all. And the fact that we are here now talking about it in a way where half the schools in the country are actually offering free meals to all students, we have made so much progress and I think we have the opportunity to move even further on that. And I do think that people are really supportive like We've done a lot of polling on this, and even in red states, like in North Carolina, more than 80% of voters actually support free school meals for all. You know, our national poll, which we did during the pandemic, I think as we were wrapping it up, we ended up with about 63% of voters really support it. Like, people understand the value, parents understand the value, and I think we just have a huge opportunity to continue to tell the story about school meals and how it's improving education and health. And I think we can, you know, keep moving the needle.
- [39:01]
John Brucato
Yeah, I mean, it really just seems like a bipartisan issue, and to your point, just seems obvious. I mean, I don't think politicking school meals is something that would be advantageous for anyone, because as any parent knows, you know, their students or their kids, rather, being healthy and fed is one of their biggest priorities. So to kind of toy with that and how the federal government is being able to or not support that, I can see this as a big political issue locally in each state. But what gives you hope as you kind of move forward throughout this process? There's a lot to kind of battle, and we always talk about it maybe from a negative aspect, but what is really giving you hope when it comes to child nutrition in schools?
- [39:52]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Well, I have to say, one of the things that's giving me hope, and I do think that every time, like the school nutrition programs come under attack, it is an opportunity to talk about how amazing they are. You know, we are really lucky to have a school breakfast and school lunch program that almost 100,000 schools across the country participate in. And they're really providing kids the healthiest meals that they're getting. And that's another piece of the research, is that, you know, when we think about kids diets, school meals are really providing some of the healthiest meals that kids eat. So we have a huge opportunity to further access to that. And I am very hopeful with the conversations that are happening around school meals. Like, people seem to understand the value. They seem to be more focused on it. You know, I've been doing this for a long time. I would say 20 years ago, school meals felt like more adjacent to education. And I think more educators really do talk about school meals and the value that they have. I mean, anybody can tell you that kids who kids need to eat, if they're, you know, in six hours, kids are going to need breakfast and lunch. So educators, I think, understand that more and are talking about that. I mean, they've always understood it, but I think people are talking about it more. And it is more. It is part of the dialogue more. And so that really does give me hope.
- [41:26]
John Brucato
Great. Well, Crystal, thank you for coming on School Business Insider and sharing all the wonderful work that you and Frack are doing alongside asbo. Such a pleasure speaking with you.
- [41:36]
Crystal Fitzsimmons
Oh, it was great to speak with you, too. I really enjoyed it.
- [41:41]
John Brucato
Thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.