In 2022, universal free lunches, which had been introduced following the pandemic, ended in the Olympia School District.This left over 250,000 Washington students who cannot afford lunches in the position of having to choose between going into school lunch debt and going hungry. While universal free lunches extremely help students and their families, ultimately the district couldn’t fund this with rising prices.
Without access to food at school, students’ academic and social successes are much lower. This is directly affecting CHS students and their attitudes at school. Most students need financial aid and cannot afford school lunches. 11.8 million students receive free lunches and 2.23 pay full price. Per student, the average school lunch debt is $180.60. A lot of people who don’t qualify for financial aid still get school lunch debt.
We decided to talk to a parent of multiple OSD students, Clarissa Gilbert, about the issue. “My son has $600 in debt and I can’t pay it off.” Her family also doesn’t qualify for financial aid, despite needing it. “It seems cheap, but when you have to pay that every single day for multiple children, it’s a lot of money to keep up with.”
We tried to get more information from ASB staff, but none of the people we tried to interview would answer our questions, saying that they didn’t know the answers. This shows that this issue won’t be resolved any time soon, and families will still be dealing with this debt for the foreseeable future.