[EdNews] School Lunch Round Up

No one knows better than educators about the importance of staying up-to-date. In Edmentum’s Topcial EdNews Round Up, you’ll find the latest education news on important industry topics in one place.

In the 2017-18 school year, about 200,000 more students qualified for free summer lunches compared to the prior year, but only 14% of total eligible students actually received them. Read more about this story, and more stories related to the discussion around school lunches in this topical edition of the EdNews Round Up.

Why does participation in the federal summer meals program keep dropping?
The New Food Economy
Only one in seven kids eligible for free summer lunch actually gets one, a new report finds.

Hunger takes no summer break: When school's out, the challenge is how to feed more kids
NBC News
Last summer was the third consecutive year in which participation in federal summer meal programs fell, a new report finds — reversing gains made from 2012 to 2015.

Congress considering bills to free up more funds for summer food programs
Education Dive
A Food Research and Action Center report released Wednesday shows participation in summer meal programs has fallen for the past three years.

Students, bored by cafeteria fare, love food delivery services; schools don’t
The Washington Post
Students in middle and high schools across America thought they had found a way around cafeteria “cuisine” and boring brown-bag lunches: just hit up delivery services such as DoorDash, Grubhub or Uber Eats and get takeout food sent to their schools.

New cross-sector initiative aims to build more sustainable school meals
PR News Wire
Nearly 100 leaders from the fields of school nutrition, the food industry, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector joined forces to launch reWorking Lunch, a new cross-sector initiative aimed at making healthier meals the norm for the 30 million kids who rely on school meals.

Many College Students Are Too Poor to Eat
The Atlantic
But no one can agree on just how many. Now lawmakers are introducing a bill to change that.

Education policy is often a topic of conversation in state and federal legislatures. Stay in-the-know with this week’s top stories regarding education reform at the state and national level.

School lunches for thousands of N.C. students would be covered
The News & Observer
The state could pick up the school lunch tab for tens of thousands of lower-income North Carolina students — and in the process reduce the number of cases of school lunch shaming.

Record number of Hawaii public schools offering free meals
The Garden Island
The Hawaii State Department of Education on Monday announced 71 public schools will serve meals through its summer food service program, Seamless Summer Option.

Georgia senator introduces act to use local produce in school lunches
WTVM
U.S. Senators David Perdue (R-GA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Farm to School Act of 2019, which would expand partnerships between farmers and school districts to encourage schools to use more locally-grown produce in students’ meals.

Trump plan to re-calculate poverty level would affect school lunch, Head Start eligibility
Education Dive
One estimate says over 10 years, 100,000 students would no longer qualify for free school meals, and 300,000 children would lose health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP.

Summer Hunger: Advocates Push for Changes to Child Nutrition Programs
Maryland Matters
About four of five Maryland school children who receive free and reduced price lunches during the school year may be going hungry this summer. The state, like many others, struggles to feed lower income Maryland children through summertime meal programs.