{"id":2073,"date":"2023-04-11T21:29:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T21:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2023-04-11T22:29:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T22:29:38","slug":"senator-stroebel-families-that-can-should-pay-for-school-lunches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=2073","title":{"rendered":"Senator Stroebel: Families That Can, Should Pay for School Lunches"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/universal-free-school-lunch-program\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"universal<\/p>\n

The push for a universal free school lunch program in Wisconsin is running into opposition at the State Capitol.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s Department of Public Instruction on Monday shared the testimony it plans to deliver to the legislature\u2019s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee about its Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs adults responsible for the well-being of Wisconsin\u2019s children, we must ensure they are fed. This shows care, humanity, and a connected community,\u201d Duy Nguyen, assistant state superintendent for the Division for Academic Excellence at the Department of Public Instruction, said. \u201cChildren should have access to free school meals.\u201d<\/p>\n

DPI wants to fully fund a free school lunch program, at the cost of $120 million for the second year of Wisconsin\u2019s two-year state budget.<\/p>\n

DPI claims that \u201cover 40% of Wisconsin students are economically disadvantaged, and nearly 21% of the state\u2019s children are considered food insecure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kids from families who make less than $36,000 a-year currently get free school lunches, and kids from families making as much as $51,000 currently get reduced-price school lunches.<\/p>\n

Sen Duey Stroebel, R-Cedarburg, who sits on the JFC, told The Center Square that families able to pay for their kids\u2019 lunches should pay for their kids\u2019 lunches.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaxpayers should not be on the hook for paying school lunches for families that could otherwise afford it. Wisconsin has finite resources\u00a0\u2013 it\u2019s important to make sure that students who are in the most need of free and reduced-price lunches are able to take advantage of this program as it was originally designed,\u201d Stroebel said.<\/p>\n

Stroebel said the expansion of school lunches during the pandemic is driving DPI\u2019s desire. But he noted that he\u2019s not the only one pushing back on the idea of universal free school lunches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recall anyone who thought this was a compelling cause before COVID-19, so returning to the pre-pandemic status quo should not be considered an affront to Wisconsin schoolchildren and their families. In fact, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards\u2019 Delegate Assembly<\/a><\/strong> recently rejected a proposed resolution that called for increased state funding to establish a universal free school lunch program,\u201d Stroebel added. \u201c Schools cannot and should not attempt to replace parents, but the adoption of a universal free school lunch program would be one more step in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

DPI will present its push for the new free lunch program at JFC\u2019s budget listening sessions this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/universal-free-school-lunch-program\/ The push for a universal free school lunch program…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":2075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2076,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}