Kentucky schools need flexibility from the USDA to feed children amid pandemic - Courier Journal

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Ryan Quarles and Marty Pollio Opinion contributors

Published 6:14 AM EDT Aug 17, 2020

During the coronavirus pandemic, the public has developed a newfound appreciation for workers in medical, educational and food sectors. Like employees in many of those sectors, school nutrition workers across Kentucky and the nation have been providing meals to children through food service programs funded by the federal government.

Hunger is a major problem in Kentucky where, even before the pandemic, an astounding one in six schoolchildren were food insecure. That’s why schools need ultimate flexibility to serve meals. With so much uncertainty about the upcoming school year, it is incredibly important that Jefferson County Public Schools and other districts have the ability to feed as many kids as possible while alleviating financial strains on families whose budgets are already stretched thin.

In a normal school year, students eligible for free and reduced meals are fed through the National School Lunch Program, which provides a reimbursement for meals served and requires verification that a student attends a particular school in a particular district. When the pandemic began months ago, the Department of Agriculture allowed most schools, including JCPS, to participate in the Summer Meals Program, which is more flexible and provides a much more generous reimbursement for meals served. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture worked with the Kentucky Department of Education to secure further flexibilities, like the serving of meals in non-congregate settings and operating mobile meal sites.

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That’s why we’re asking the USDA to extend the waiver allowing Kentucky schools and others across the nation to continue feeding children under the Summer Meals Program regulations. There will be a significant financial impact on school districts if there is no extension. Reimbursements for the National School Lunch Program are smaller than reimbursements for the summer program. If JCPS had claimed all of the meals distributed to students between March 17 and June 30 under the National School Lunch Program, school system revenue would have been $478,000 less than what it received through the summer program.

Every Kentucky family wants to defeat this virus. Every Kentucky family wants to have their kids back in school. Every Kentucky family wants their kids to get the education and nutrition they need to thrive. However, the school year looks to be uncertain for many families. Since day one of this pandemic, we’ve worked to do all we can to ensure that Kentucky schoolchildren are fed and we cannot let up now.

It’s for all of these reasons that we — the superintendent of Kentucky’s largest urban school district and the leader of Kentucky’s rural agricultural community — will continue to advocate for the USDA to maintain the flexibility it extended earlier this year. We look forward to a day when students across Jefferson County and our entire commonwealth can be back together again. But until that day arrives, we must do everything in our power to feed Kentucky's children.

Ryan Quarles is Kentucky’s commissioner of agriculture, and Marty Pollio is superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools.

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