Wausau Director of School Nutrition Services Concerned Over Affordability of Meals for Students

Tuesday, October 4th, 2022 -- 2:00 PM

(By Jenny Peek, Wisconsin Public Radio) Karen Fochs spends a lot of her work week visiting kitchens and cafeterias in the Wausau School District.

According to Jenny Peek with Wisconsin Public Radio, as the director of School Nutrition Services in the central Wisconsin district, she likes to make sure the meals the school is providing are well received.

But this year she noticed something concerning, and it didn't have to do with what was being dished onto cafeteria trays. More students are foregoing meals because they can't afford to pay for them.

"The need is there. It's just bubbling under the surface," she said. "(Students) want to eat in our cafeterias, they want this food ... But again we have all these rules in place about reduced and free lunches."

She points to the end of universal free lunches, a pandemic-era, federally funded program that expired June 30, as the cause. "It's like we just went from pandemic to no pandemic," Fochs said. "There is no exception or compassion yet for knowing that kids are not getting fed at home."

The beginning of the 2022-23 school year marked the first time in two years that parents and guardians had to apply for free or reduced-price meals based on income. Federal waivers over the course of the pandemic made all students eligible to receive both free breakfast and lunch.

Democrats and U.S. Department of Agriculture leaders tried to extend the waivers into this school year, but attempts didn't make it past Congress. For Fochs, that has meant hearing some devastating stories.

"The nurse from one of our middle schools emailed me very concerned about four students who are eating from the school pantry over the noon hour. And the pantry supervisor is having to tell those students that they can't eat there either anymore because the supplies are dwindling," she said.

Fochs also relayed a story about a family's application that was denied because they were $100 over the income eligibility for reduced-price meals. One of those students will have to forgo renting a violin this year to afford school food.

"That just broke my heart, because I think to myself, 'How many other students out there, families out there, are making that choice?'" Fochs said. "Are we going to lose some extremely talented kids, musicians, athletes … based on the reduced meal program that is no longer available to them because they don't qualify?"

According to the state Department of Public Instruction, or DPI, the 2022-23 yearly income cutoff for a household of four for free meals is $36,075. A household of four needs to make $51,338 or less to qualify for reduced-price meals.

Some families are automatically eligible for free meals without having to apply. That includes families participating in foster care, FoodShare, W-2 cash benefits, Medicaid or the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.

Some schools and districts in Wisconsin also qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows high-poverty schools and districts to provide free meals to all students.

As of 2019, districts in Milwaukee, Beloit and Bayfield were just a few of the districts in which every school was enrolled. But as Fochs notes, that still leaves a lot of families out.

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