New state-wide program offers free lunch for all students
Along with other schools across the state of California, the Palo Alto Unified School District (壁咚影院) has begun to provide free meals for all students for the 2021-22 school year due to new national and state policies.
Free school lunches were initially offered by the federal government as part of COVID-19 pandemic relief. While this program was initially meant to be temporary, the United States Department of Agriculture has committed to providing free lunches through the 2021-22 school year due to hardships that many families still face. In California, the state plans on continuing the universal lunch program as part of a $123.9 billion education package in hopes to combat youth food insecurity.
Despite the implementation of free lunches, new guidelines have restricted the meal options that schools were once able to provide, according to Acting Lunch Supervisor Normalyn Bato. While choices like pasta and baked potato bars were offered in the past, current lunches in the district usually consist of a prepackaged main entr茅e such as a chicken drumstick or a veggie burger along with a few sides such as fruits, vegetables or a bag of chips. 鈥淏efore [the pandemic], we could make a lot of choices, but now we are limited,鈥 Bato said.
According to Principal Wendy Stratton, the district has had to modify its traditional meal options to comply with new requirements. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something we have much control over,鈥 she said. 鈥淭he district has to follow very strict guidelines on what they can offer, and it鈥檚 more limited than it has been in the past.鈥
Even with the limitations around free meals, the district has been working on offering a more diverse array of options. Before the school year began, Assistant Principal Courtney Carlomagno and other administrators experimented with providing pho as a potential free meal option. 鈥淎s we all get settled in, the district is working hard and putting their culinary knowledge forward to bring more offerings based on the current situation,鈥 she said.
An area of concern shared by administrators and students including sophomore Stella Manning is the small portion sizes of the free lunch. 鈥淭he portion sizes of the main meals are way too small,鈥 she said. 鈥淭he added vegetables and snacks aren鈥檛 filling, so I end up still feeling hungry when I finish eating.鈥
鈥淭he district is working hard and putting their culinary knowledge forward to bring more offerings based on the current situation.
— Principal Wendy Stratton
Stratton shared similar thoughts on the free meals. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a lot of food for an athlete or somebody going to after-school sports,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just to get you through the day. A lot of times, you have to supplement that with something else.鈥
A logistical issue the district is facing regarding the free lunches is determining the number of meals to order in advance. Since nearly 500 students take advantage of the free lunch, there are not always enough entr茅es for everyone, leaving some like sophomore Sean Li without a hot meal. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e at the end of the line, a lot of the good food is gone, and they just have to give you a small protein box,鈥 he said.
Compared to a main entr茅e, these protein boxes provide significantly less food for students, consisting of fruit, sunflower seeds and other snacks. Protein boxes are distributed once the initial stock of prepackaged meals has been depleted. 鈥淲e really don鈥檛 have choices anymore, so that is all we can provide,鈥 Bato said.
District staff are in the process of solving this issue. 鈥淲e have been adjusting the amount of what we are ordering and what we鈥檙e bringing in because more students wanted free lunch than we anticipated,鈥 Stratton said.
According to Stratton, school administrators have listened to student feedback and have already adapted the lunch process. During the first few weeks of school, the lunch line often stretched around different buildings due to challenges with scanning student IDs. While administrators had temporarily lifted the ID requirement to search for a more efficient mechanism, they have since returned to requiring students to show their ID.
While the lunch program has its limitations, but students have had a generally positive reaction to the free meals. 鈥淔ree lunch is probably the best thing the district could have done since it allows everyone to just get lunch,鈥 Li said.
Junior Ethan Liang echoed Li鈥檚 outlook on the future of free lunches at Gunn. 鈥淭he best people to give feedback on such a thing are the people who are experiencing it,鈥 he said. 鈥淚f the process can be improved over time steadily with student feedback, it鈥檒l get better and better.鈥