COLUMBUS – Ohio schools are seeing an explosion of school lunch debt, in some cases ranging from $30,000 to $40,000 per school year, from kids whose families can’t afford to pay for lunch but who don’t qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
The group Hunger Free Schools Ohio claims it would cost the state less than two dollars per child, per day to provide free school meals to all students in Ohio.
Katherine Unger with the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio says school meals are just as important to student’s academic success as textbooks.
“They are linked to better educational outcomes, including increased test scores, improved academic attendance and increased graduation rates,” she said.
Advocates say eliminating school meal debt and significantly reducing the administrative work required to operate School Nutrition Programs could help solve the problem.
A 2022 survey conducted by Unger’s organization and Baldwin Wallace University found 87 percent of respondents agreed that school meals should be provided at no cost to all Ohio students.
One in six Ohio children, and as many as one in four children in certain counties, lives in a household that faces hunger.