Food insecurity in Rhode Island in 2023 surged 30% year over year, according to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. And compared with 2019, this need has nearly doubled, at a 49% increase from pre-COVID-19 levels.
But as the insufficient access to nutritious food skyrockets, resources for students in need of meals have declined.
While all students at Rhode Island public schools had access to free breakfast and lunch during the 2021-2022 school year, regardless of their family’s income, emergency funding set aside for the universal program has now run dry, and efforts to fund it permanently have stalled in the Statehouse.
It’s a situation that concerns Stephanie Geller, deputy director of Rhode Island Kids Count, and other advocates for children and families who struggle to afford food.
Under current eligibility requirements for free school meals, “there are so many kids who are just above the income limit, whose families aren’t being fed,” Geller said.
At the state level, Rhode Island follows the National School Lunch Program guidelines. Under the program, children from families with an income of up to 130% of the poverty level qualify for free meals, while students from families making between 140% to 185% of the poverty level are eligible for reduced meals, which are priced at a maximum of 40 cents. Beyond this, individual schools can determine if they will offer lunch assistance to students who don’t meet the thresholds.
Data from the R.I. Department of Education shows that demand for the free meals program goes beyond what federal requirements support. In the 2019-2020 school year, 21.64% of Rhode Island’s public school students received free breakfast, while 48.71% received free lunches. When meals were offered free to all students the following school year in 2021-2022, participation jumped to 28.02% in the free breakfast program and 55.09% in the lunch program.
Following the end of the free-to-all meal program, those figures dropped below pre-COVID-19 levels, according to RIDE. In the 2022-2023 school year, 19.97% of students enrolled in Rhode Island public schools participated in the free breakfast program, while 47.28% used the free lunch program.
During last year’s legislative session, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 31-4, to fund free meals for all public school students permanently. But the bill stalled in the House, which did not vote on the measure.
This legislative session, Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s proposed $13.7 billion budget for fiscal 2025 includes $812,952 to cover an additional 6,500 students at public, charter and state schools for free school meals.
A McKee spokesperson said the budget proposal reflects the shrinking amount of pandemic-era federal funding available but still makes “targeted investments” in education.
While the proposal will help some students, Geller says it doesn’t go far enough in addressing food insecurity among schools. In turn, she says, this lack of access to school meals correlates with lower academic performance and attendance rates, according to multiple studies.
The current system separates students as “the ones who get the free meals, [and] the ones who aren’t,” Geller said. “Children may not want to be identified as from a lower-income family.”
It also lags behind measures in neighboring Massachusetts, which approved permanent, universally free meals for K-12 students, starting last fall.
While the majority of Rhode Island school districts stopped offering universal free meals after emergency funding expired, some have found other resources to permanently implement the program. The Providence Public School District, for instance, has done so through the federal Community Eligibility Provision for high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students. It started in some schools in 2016 and expanded districtwide in 2019.
“PPSD believes healthy students are better learners,” said district spokesperson Jay G. Wegimont. “Hunger and lack of regular access to food are linked to serious physical, psychological, emotional and academic problems in children and can interfere with their growth and development.
“CEP is an effective way to fill these nutritional gaps,” Wegimont said. But not all school districts in the state qualify for this assistance, which is available to “the nation’s highest poverty schools and districts,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In a statement, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said he supported McKee’s proposal to expand the availability of free school meals and did not indicate support for a universal measure at this time.
“Ensuring that all Rhode Island students have access to healthy food is an important issue, and I commend my colleagues [and bill co-sponsors], Reps. Justine Caldwell and Teresa Tanzi, for their advocacy,” Shekarchi said.
“I support the funding in the governor’s budget proposal to provide free school lunches for about 6,000 students who are currently receiving lunches at a reduced rate,” he said. “The House Finance Committee will carefully review this proposal in an open and transparent process with public input.”
Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio, meanwhile, released a statement that highlighted “increasing access to no-cost meals for students” as a priority for the legislative body.