President's Perspective

There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Charles Warren, AAEA Board President

Growing up in Elkins (Go Elks!), I was a big fan of school lunches. My favorite dish was the square shaped piece of pizza on Fridays. I’ll admit that there were times that the school lunch did not suit my fancy. When that happened, I was quick to bring out my Six Million Dollar Man lunch box filled with a good old-fashioned baloney sandwich and maybe, just maybe, a Twinkie. Mostly, I ate the school-provided lunch.

When I was in elementary school in the late 1900s, I knew the names of the Child Nutrition workers at my school – like Dixie, Irene, and Laverne. They knew my name and the names of my classmates. I think that we sometimes overlook the fact that these staff members know all the kids in their school. We forget that these school employees develop real relationships with students. They get to know what we like and what we don’t like. They try to pick us up when we are down and they celebrate with us when things are going our way.

I have always had a deep respect for the profession because my grandmother, Margaret West, was a Child Nutrition worker at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville at Pomfret Hall. She loved interacting with the students. I remember her returning from work in her white uniform and talking about the kids in the dorm. They were from all over and she loved pulling out a map to see exactly where they came from.

Back then, the term that was used was likely “cafeteria worker” or “lunch lady” or “food service”. These terms don’t honor their skills and professional service they provide. That’s why I’ll use the term “Child Nutrition.” To further demonstrate their professionalism, they have a professional organization called “School Nutrition Association” (SNA). They also have a certification program with 70 hours of training to become a “Certified Child Nutrition Worker.” It feels like this group should be a constituency of AAEA.

When I think of Child Nutrition finance, I think of Ashten Black. I first met Ashten when she made a presentation at the 2022 Annual AASBO Conference. She spoke so intelligently and passionately about Child Nutrition finance that I was floored. She broke down a complex subject into foundational points that allowed me to expand my understanding about the program called Community Eligibility Provision (CEP).

Soon after that presentation, Ashten joined the AASBO Board. I asked Ashten to provide a few thoughts from the perspective of a school business official (SBO) on Child Nutrition. She pointed out that although recent state legislation funded free breakfasts for all Arkansas public school students, the CEP program could still make a meaningful impact to your school district.

That’s because districts qualifying for CEP can provide lunches for free to all students. When all meals are free, more kids are eating and that’s a good thing. There are so many more benefits to the CEP program (both inside Child Nutrition and outside) than I could have listed here, but Ashten can easily reel them off in a conversation.

Districts must look closely at the financial impact of moving to CEP. If your district’s free and reduced (F/R) student population is not high enough, your district may be subsidizing a lot of student meals. There’s an old business expression “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. That’s true, but there may be value in providing a free lunch through CEP.

Although not enrolled in CEP, school districts like Fort Smith have to work hard to ensure all students have an F/R meal application on file, especially by October 1st every year. The unique nature of our Enhanced Student Achievement (ESA) funding created funding cliffs that provide significant drops in funding per F/R students. When I first started working at FSPS in 2009, our F/R percentage was 68%, placing us on the lowest funding tier of ESA. For the last ten years, we’ve reflected a level of 72%, moving us to the next funding tier.

I worry about these F/R counts and percentages every September. I don’t wish that so many of our students live in some level of poverty. If they do, however, I want every dollar we can get for our district and ultimately for them. I don’t like having to sweat it out until we get to 70% F/R.

I unashamedly advocate for F/R students. There was a period of time that I was one. For a couple of years, my mom stayed home to raise my youngest brother Jonathan, her most favored child. Jonathan knows it’s true. My brother Bill and I know it too. I mean, we went to a baby sitter so mom could teach in Fayetteville when we were preschoolers – not that we’re bitter. But I digress. As a family of five living on the wages of a rural school principal, we qualified for reduced meals. I remember my dad telling me that we were going to start buying yellow lunch tickets from now on because it would help the school. Later, as an adult, I realized that the school collected colored lunch tickets – green (full pay), yellow (reduced), and red (free). I never dreamed that this program would be one of my biggest concerns as an SBO at Fort Smith.

Even though breakfasts are free, whether or not you qualify as an F/R student, Ashten has also got me thinking more about moving to a program called “breakfast in the classroom.” She advocates that more kids will eat if there is time provided at the start of the school day to eat breakfast. Some students don’t get to school early enough to enjoy breakfast in the cafeteria before school starts. She knows the classroom may get “messy,” but she showed me research indicating that breakfast in the classroom to start the day improves student attendance, discipline, mental health, test scores, and academic achievement. It’s hard to argue with that kind of data.

Lastly, my wife, Missy, shared a memory, also from the late 1900s. While attending her first year of school in Hamburg (Go Lions!), she forgot to get lunch money from her dad. She was sobbing in the lunch line because her six year old imagination thought she might starve and that her dad was going to have to pick up her boney, dead carcass from school later that day because she assumed that she couldn’t eat if she couldn’t pay.

A Child Nutrition employee saw her and heard her story. She assured Missy that everything was OK and that she could “charge” her lunch today and bring in the money tomorrow. She remembers the relief of that moment and the kindness of that lady. Though we lived in two different corners of the state, Missy and I learned early in our childhood that Child Nutrition employees cared about us and every kid in their school building. I can also confirm that Missy is still very comfortable “charging” things to this day.