This summer, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed into law a new universal free school meal program.
In Michigan, 1 in 8 children face hunger and food insecurity.
Now, 1.4 million public school children across the state have reliable access to free school breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.
The program was piloted in districts like Ironwood before being rolled out to the rest of the state.
Five years before Michigan made headlines with their universal free school meal program, they were testing it out in the Ironwood School District.
Through a grant called the Community Eligibility Program, Ironwood was able to begin providing no cost meals to all children in the district.
Travis Powell is the superintendent of the Ironwood School District.
“When we initially enacted that, we were able to save the families in the Ironwood community around $80,000- what we've been collecting from families to pay for meals,” explained Powell.
In Ironwood, around 60% of students qualified for free or reduced price lunches before the program began.
Powell says it has been working very effectively.
“Lunch goes smoothly, our food service staff works effectively, kids' experience in the cafeteria is more positive, I believe, because there isn't this extra stress of, ‘am I going to get denied if I go up to the lunch line?’” he said.
Some students do still choose to bring their own lunches.
“But it really reduces any type of burden or stigma, when you don't have to worry about paying for the meal, knowing that the food is available at no cost,” said Powell.
Powell explained that the cafeteria staff hold a “cook’s choice menu” day occasionally, in which the menu is based on the children’s feedback on their favorites.
“Our food service team, they really work hard to engage with the children and make lunch as enjoyable as possible. (9:14-9:20) It just adds a nice extra sense of community. And again, it's all at no cost. So the children can focus energy and other things and not have to worry about if they have an overdue lunch balance, or if they forgot their money today or any of those kinds of things,” said Powell.
He said that he’s glad that the district can take this burden off families.
“[There’s] no having to worry about oh, I forgot my money today, I can't have a snack. But I'm really hungry like that. That's all the way out of the equation. If you show up for the meal, you get the meal,” said Powell.
Research showsthat food-insecure children score lower than their food-secure peers in arithmetic and general achievement tests.
“If a child is in class, and they're not sure where they're going to sleep tonight, or they didn't have anything for breakfast and they don't think they're gonna be going for lunch, they're not interested in fractions. They're not interested in learning about the Civil War. They're not interested in how to conjugate verbs. Their mind is occupied with their basic needs first,” said Powell.
That’s why Powell says he hopes universal free school meals have a long-term positive impact on student’s ability to learn.
