{"id":4416,"date":"2022-03-10T15:50:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T15:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=4416"},"modified":"2022-03-10T15:50:18","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T15:50:18","slug":"americas-school-lunch-program-is-failing-black-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/10\/americas-school-lunch-program-is-failing-black-students\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s School Lunch Program Is Failing Black Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maya Pottiger | Word In Black | Sacramento Observer<\/em><\/p>\n

(WIB) \u2013 From mushy fish sticks and fries to mystery meat burgers and soggy broccoli, public school lunches in the United States aren\u2019t exactly known as a culinary delight. But these free and reduced-price school lunch meals \u2014\u00a0as well as a breakfast to start the day \u2014 keep millions of low-income students from going hungry. And we\u2019ve known since before the Black Panthers began feeding children in Oakland in 1969 that a disproportionate number of those kids are Black.<\/p>\n

So what happens when schools are grappling with the pandemic transition to remote learning, or when individual students are quarantined because they\u2019ve caught COVID-19 \u2014 or when their families choose virtual schooling to keep them safe? It turns out that more Black children are going to bed hungry at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we saw consistently was that families of color, particularly Black families, had food insecurity rates that were two-to-three times as high as white households,\u201d says\u00a0Elaine Waxman<\/a>, a senior fellow at the\u00a0Urban Institute<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s not a new story, but again, particularly early in the pandemic, it was really exacerbated for Black families.\u201d<\/p>\n

For low-income families, their child\u2019s school can account for\u00a0two out of three daily meals<\/a>\u00a0on weekdays, or a \u201csignificant portion\u201d of a family\u2019s food budget, Waxman says. Research has long shown that school meals help reduce food insecurity, which is further proven during summertime when families struggle from not having access to those meals on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew these things coming into the pandemic,\u201d Waxman says. \u201cBut the pandemic has really driven home how critical it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Schools Tried to Alleviate Food Insecurity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black families reeling from the effects of the pandemic \u2014 such as being more likely to be laid off and less likely to be hired, having fewer resources, and high rates of COVID-19 infection and death \u2014 found they needed free and reduced-price meals more than ever. But they couldn\u2019t always count on school meals being an option.<\/p>\n

Schools tried to shift their mealtime strategies at the beginning of the pandemic, like implementing a grab-and-go option where families could pick up prepackaged meals. But it didn\u2019t work on a large scale, Waxman says, because it\u2019s not practical to leave if you have kids at home \u2014 cash strapped parents or guardians would need to hire a babysitter, for example \u2014 and you have to weigh the cost of getting there against the value of the food. Plus, schools were facing staffing shortages.<\/p>\n

To get more insight, Word In Black used data tables from the Census Bureau\u2019s\u00a0Household Pulse surveys<\/a>, which are conducted monthly over a two-week period to collect data on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting peoples\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

Questions about free meals and food assistance were not included in the surveys until the end of July 2021. Responses to a survey question about how many children did not receive free meals or food assistance provide a sobering perspective on the problem. In July 2021, only 33% of Black children did not need free meals or food assistance. The most recent data from January 2022 revealed that the situation is slightly better, with only 35% not needing help with food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the rug is pulled, it gets pulled out from everyone, and there\u2019s less of a cushion there for families of color,\u201d Waxman says. Urban Institute\u2019s Fall 2020 coronavirus tracking data showed Black families with kids in school were facing food insecurity at\u00a0rates of nearly 40%<\/a>. \u201cThat was frightening. And it\u2019s frightening because we know from research that even short spells of food insecurity leave a mark on kids in terms of their health and development,\u201d Waxman says.<\/p>\n

The Shortcomings of the Pandemic-Electronic Benefits Transfer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eventually, the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT)\u00a0program emerged<\/a>. Instead of putting the onus on families and schools to coordinate meal pick-ups, the value of missed meals was electronically put on a card for any kid who was eligible for free or reduced-price meals.<\/p>\n

The disproportionate negative financial impact of the pandemic on Black communities can be seen in the data. In both July 2021 and January 2022, more Black families by far had received or used an EBT to help buy groceries, according to the Household Pulse surveys. Black families (31%) used EBT cards 182% more than white families (11%) and 287% more than Asian families (8%) in July 2021. The gap closed a bit by January 2022, with Black families (26%) using EBT cards 189% more than Asian and white families (9% each).<\/p>\n

However, P-EBT\u00a0isn\u2019t available to everyone who needs it<\/a>. The first problem, as the Washington Post reported earlier this month, is that most\u00a0states haven\u2019t applied<\/a>\u00a0to renew the program for the 2021-2022 school year. Currently, only eight states are approved for federal aid, and another 17 are in various stages of the application process.<\/p>\n

But even if more states were participating, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which runs the National School Lunch Program and P-EBT, has made it so that students who are enrolled in virtual schooling are no longer eligible for free meals. The reasoning is that virtual schools are not equipped with cafeterias or culinary staff, so they would not provide students with meals even in a non-pandemic situation, and there\u2019s nothing \u201cto reimburse families for anyway,\u201d according to\u00a0The Counter\u2019s in-depth feature on P-EBT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Food and Nutrition Service Administrator Cindy Long wrote in a statement to Word In Black: \u201cFNS is committed to ensuring that school meals continue to be a reliable source of nutrition for children throughout the school day. We are acting quickly to leverage flexibilities that have been provided by Congress, recognizing the importance of school meals in protecting our children during this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Urban Institute\u2019s Waxman pointed out that families that enrolled in virtual academies \u2014 separate schools that are entirely virtual \u2014\u00a0chose that option because they were among the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got an email today from a grandparent in a state where that\u2019s what they\u2019ve done because both she and her husband are immunocompromised. They\u2019ve kept the kid home for virtual schooling this year,\u201d Waxman says. \u201cShe didn\u2019t realize that that meant there were going to be no benefits. It\u2019s a big problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reality could be affecting more and more Black families. Though the\u00a0trend began prior to the pandemic<\/a>, we\u2019ve also seen a\u00a0rising number<\/a>\u00a0of Black families switch to homeschooling since 2020. Not only do families want to keep their kids safe health-wise, but they\u2019re also fed up with\u00a0not seeing themselves or their history<\/a>\u00a0represented in school textbooks.<\/p>\n

Food Insecurity Isn\u2019t New\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u00a0September 2021 New York Times story<\/a>\u00a0found that food insecurity levels were \u201cunchanged\u201d from where they were pre-pandemic. The story also notes, however, that food insecurity did rise among households with children, Black households, and households in the South.<\/p>\n

In the Household Pulse surveys, Black children reported the highest percentage of \u201coften\u201d not having enough to eat. They polled at 4% both prior to the pandemic and in May 2020, the first Household Pulse survey. In January 2022, they polled at 5%. In all three surveys, it was the highest percentage.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big lessons from the pandemic is the critical role that school meals play as part of the nutrition safety net,\u201d Judith Bartfeld, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin,\u00a0told the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cThe value of school meals became transparent when the meals disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve seen time and time again, the twin viruses of racism and COVID-19 are taking a toll on Black communities and children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard because now you don\u2019t even have schools that are in the same status because the school might be in session, but you might have a kid who\u2019s out for 10 days,\u201d Waxman says. \u201cSo once again, we\u2019re in the situation where benefits may be coming, but they\u2019re going to come many months after they were first needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a program that can be more easily triggered and can make some really broad assumptions, that say, if we have positivity rates at a certain level, that kids get a benefit,\u201d Waxman says. \u201cI think people worry we should be good stewards of government resources. I\u2019m not arguing that. But the trade-off here is food insecurity or a detailed data process. And to me, that\u2019s not a choice, right? You ameliorate the food insecurity, and you understand that that\u2019s an investment worth making.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post\u00a0America\u2019s School Lunch Program Is Failing Black Students<\/a>\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0The Sacramento Observer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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By Maya Pottiger | Word In Black | Sacramento Observer (WIB) \u2013 From mushy fish sticks and fries to mystery meat burgers and soggy broccoli, public school lunches in the United States aren\u2019t exactly known as a culinary delight. But these free and reduced-price school lunch meals \u2014\u00a0as well as a breakfast to start the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,18],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[110],"class_list":["post-4416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4417,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4416\/revisions\/4417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4416"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=4416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}