AASA Joins National Organizations in Response to Proposed Changes to Community Eligibility Provision
On Tuesday, April 19 AASA joined the Association of School
Business Officials International (ASBO), the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP), the School Nutrition Association (SNA), the Food Research and Action
Center (FRAC) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) for a
Congressional briefing on the Community Eligibility Provision. This program is a
powerful federal option that enables high-poverty schools and districts to
provide breakfast and lunch to all students at no charge.
Enacted in the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and
available nationwide since school year 2014–15, Community Eligibility has been
adopted in more than 18,000 high-poverty schools in nearly 3,000 school districts,
reaching more than 8.5 million students, according to a new report from FRAC
and CBPP. As it considers reauthorizing
the child nutrition bill, the U.S. House of Representatives has proposed to
change the rules for eligibility for CEP. Currently, schools and districts with
more than 40 percent of students identified for free and reduced price lunch
eligibility through direct certification (such as through SNAP or TANF) are
eligible. The House proposal is to change that threshold to 60 percent, which
would cause 7,000 schools around the country to lose eligibility.
The briefing kicked off with a welcome from AAP President
Benard Dreyer and Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA), House Education and the
Workforce Committee. Both expressed the extreme need for CEP, and how we can
move it forward, instead of going backwards on school meals for students.
“CEP is helping
schools, it’s helping teachers and, above all, it’s helping address child
poverty and reduce the stigma associated with being a child who is food
insecure,” said Dreyer.
Congressman Scott, a CEP champion and a leader for access to
quality early-, secondary- and higher-education for all of America’s children, said
“If you have [CEP], you don’t have the stigma of people having to qualify for
free and reduced lunch and produce paperwork at the checkout counter that identifies
them as low or moderate income and it just makes it much better.”
“We have a report that goes into detail about the good of
the Community Eligibility Provision and why it needs to be maintained – and
maybe even improved – but certainly not go backwards because education is at
risk and the wellbeing of millions of children,” said Scott.
In addition to providing an overview of the Community
Eligibility Provision, a panel of education leaders was also there to share their
experiences with the program, and what it would mean for the enrolled schools
if the program was taken away. The group included Vonda Cooke, director of
child nutrition programs, Pennsylvania Department of Education; Lisa Kyer,
business administrator, Lansingburgh Central School District (N.Y.); and Morris
Leis, superintendent, Coffee County School System (Ga.).
AASA member Superintendent Morris Leis implemented the program
in his district in 2014 and has provided students in 11 of his 12
schools with free breakfast and lunch since. If the proposed eligibility
changes are made, six of his schools will no longer be able to remain in the
program.
“The CEP is changing lives in a positive way in our
community,” said Leis. “The things that are happening because of this program
are amazing.”
The community in Coffee County is made up of 43,000 people,
which includes 7,700 students that are being educated in the district’s 12
schools. 75 percent of those students are considered economically
disadvantaged.
“We’re finishing our second year of CEP and if these changes
go through, six of our schools will no longer be eligible,” said Leis. “We’ve
got a lot of [students] who fall above the threshold for free and reduced
[lunch], but if we didn’t have this program their children wouldn’t eat.”
According to Leis, in the middle school, prior to this
program, students simply would not eat because they didn’t want the stigma of
being a student eating a free lunch.
Since implementation of CEP, Leis said that students are
going to the cafeteria to eat and that the entire school atmosphere has changed
tremendously.
“Kids are eating and the whole strata of ‘free,’ ‘reduced’
and ‘paid’ is gone. They’re all the same,” said Leis.
The mission of Coffee County School System is to provide an
equitable and excellent education for every student – which is being done
through CEP.
“We provide [students] books, we provide them with
transportation, we have nice buildings for them to come to, we have good
teachers to teach them - and under the old system we’d get them here and make
them pay for lunch,” said Leis. “Well now with CEP, we don’t classify. We have
equity in our school system.”
For
more information on the Community Eligibility Provision, visit frac.org.