Proposed cuts to school meal programs spark concerns
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Children's advocates are crying foul after House Republicans called for $12 billion in cuts to the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows high-poverty school districts to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of their ability to pay.
Erin Hysom, senior policy analyst at the Food Research and Action Center, said the funds are an important public investment and no child can learn on an empty stomach.
"We hear from teachers all the time that when schools offer healthy school meals for all, behavior in the classroom improves," Hysom reported. "Their academics improve and they're able to graduate and become more productive members of society."
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Some 557 Colorado schools serving more than 206,000 students are projected to be affected. The proposed cuts are part of a sweeping effort by Republicans to eliminate waste and inefficiency in the federal budget in order to pay for extending President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts and other policy priorities, including mass deportations.
Hysom noted the Community Eligibility Provision has already reduced inefficiency and red tape, and cuts would send school nutrition directors away from kitchens and back to their desks to deal with unnecessary paperwork. She added the move would also affect farm-to-school initiatives putting money directly into the pockets of local farms and ranches.
"They're able to meet with local agricultural producers and bring in local products that not only improve the nutrition of the meal but also support the local economy," Hysom explained.
Cuts to federal nutrition funding would certainly not help Colorado's Healthy School Meals for All initiative, passed by voters in 2022. The popular program is competing with other priorities as the state grapples with a $1.2 billion budget shortfall.
Hysom worries the cuts could also mean the return of lunch line shaming.
"It really creates this stigma in the cafeteria," Hysom contended. "When we offer school meals to all children at no charge, it reduces that stigma."
