By April Berg / For The Herald
Children are innocent and full of promise. They have no control over whether their family is rich or poor; and there is no reason to punish school children by making them go hungry.
You would think this was common sense, and basic humanity. But it’s not how our state laws and education system works.
Students who don’t have the lunch fee, even on reduced-price lunch, go hungry.
And hungry kids struggle to learn.
I also serve on the Everett School Board, so I know this problem, and believe we should listen to the people who dedicate their career to solving it. People like Megan de Vries, the Food and Nutrition Director for the Edmonds School District.
“Nutritious meals are a basic need that we need to be able to provide without barriers,” de Vries told lawmakers. “Please waive the 40-cent lunch fee for reduced students so we can continue to nourish them.”
This problem is a lot bigger than you’d think.
Before the pandemic, 1 in 6 children in our state lived in a food-insecure household. Now, it’s 1 in 4 kids. One in 4. And families of color are one-and-a-half times more likely to go hungry.
As a mother, I see this as a moral issue. If all those little boys and girls were in the streets and holding up signs about being hungry, there’d be stories every day in the paper and on the TV news. But when they are inside our public schools, the problem doesn’t get as much attention.
But the teachers and staff know which kids are hungry. They see it every day.
Making sure no child goes hungry is the right thing to do.
As a lawmaker, I view this as the smart thing to do. Our goal is to give every student in our public schools the best shot at success in school and in life. Research clearly shows that hungry kids struggle. And it’s the kids already facing tougher odds who are the ones usually wrestling with hunger. You have to fix that first to give a student a fair shot.
Our state constitution speaks to how important this is, with that document clearly stating that education is the “paramount duty of the state.” Those words were written more than a 130 years ago.
It’s time we took a big step toward helping all of our students in public school. While the 40-cent lunch copay may seem tiny, that barrier is stopping too many children from getting the nutrition they need, stunting them physically and educationally.
The forty-cent lunch copay is the last obstacle that needs to fall.
I wrote House Bill 1342 to get that done for all our students in public schools. The legislation builds on the work of previous laws like Breakfast After the Bell.
It’s taken decades to get here, to climb to the top of this mountain. The final push will be hard, but worth it.
This legislation passed the House of Representatives on a strong bipartisan vote of 95-1. But its passage in the Senate is not guaranteed.
Failure to pass the bill would mean another year with more hungry students from Aberdeen to Spokane.
Please email or call your state lawmakers (800-562-6000) and ask them to bring House Bill 1342 to a vote. It may seem like a small thing in a year where we’re all struggling with the global covid pandemic.But to a hungry little boy or girl in our public schools, this means everything.
State Rep. April Berg, D-Mill Creek, is a former small business owner and former aerospace program manager. She serves as vice chair of the House Finance Committee.
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