State longitudinal education data system certifies more than 650,000
low-income students for free school meals without paperwork hassles
SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced today that implementation of the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS), the state's longitudinal education data system, has led to great progress in enrolling eligible children for free meals without the need to complete any additional paperwork. O'Connell warned that further progress to efficiently enroll hungry students in school nutrition programs will be delayed as a result of the Governor's veto of funding for CALPADS.
"Since the integration of our school nutrition certification program with CALPADS last August, school districts have enrolled hundreds of thousands of eligible, hungry children in school nutrition programs," O'Connell said. "School meal programs ensure that California children are ready to learn, grow, and become successful adults. In these tough economic times, school nutrition programs provide the only consistently healthy meals for many students, who would otherwise go hungry.
"By utilizing CALPADS, districts were able to directly certify an additional 212,000 students for free meals in just three months, about a 47 percent increase from the previous year's total when the California Department of Education used a system other than CALPADS. The students were immediately eligible for free, healthy lunches and breakfasts at school, and districts eliminated hundreds of thousands of pages of paperwork. The Governor's short-sighted veto of CALPADS funding means system improvements that could directly certify another 10 to 30 percent more students are now on hold."
Currently more than 2.1 million students in California public school districts are eating a free or reduced-priced lunch, but more than a million other students are eligible and do not participate in the program. With the integration into CALPADS, California has enhanced its ability to serve disadvantaged students because districts no longer have to upload data into another system for the direct certification to occur.
"Through direct certification using CALPADS, we were able to increase the number of students who qualified for free meals by 54 percent — that is significant in my book," said Kathy Drennen, Director of Child Nutrition Services for Lincoln Unified School District. "CALPADS has increased accuracy and is saving us time and money. The best benefit is that it is allowing us to provide nutritious meals to students whose families, for one reason or another, have neglected to apply for participation in school nutrition programs. These hungry students come to school with no money. Because of CALPADS, we no longer have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to contact the students' parents or guardians in order to give them access to free or reduced-priced meals."
In the three months since CALPADS was integrated with California's award- winning school nutrition direct certification process, 662,000 children have been directly certified, representing a 47 percent increase in just three months compared to the 450,000 students directly certified last school year through the state system that did not use CALPADS). The Governor's veto of funding for CALPADS has put on hold the California Department of Education's plans for CALPADS enhancements that would allow between 70,000 and 200,000 additional students to be directly certified for free school meals in the coming year.
"For over a decade we have been advocating for paperless ways of enrolling low-income students in the meal programs" says Ken Hecht, Executive Director of the California Food Policy Advocates. "This new data show that with the CALPADS match, we can indeed use technology to efficiently serve needy families. Less paper is good for schools and good for families."
Under the federal National School Lunch Act, states across the nation are required to directly certify children in welfare and food stamp households to receive free school meals. Students participating in these programs already have had family members go through a detailed process to establish financial need. Recognizing that school districts should not have to waste time once again re-establishing the need for school meals, the process of "direct certification" matches current Food Stamp and CalWORKs enrollment records against school enrollment data. CALPADS automates this process by using student data that school districts have already entered into the system.
The National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program play an important role in providing nutritious meals for low-income children at little or no charge. These programs benefit children's overall health, and research indicates that well-nourished children have fewer behavioral problems in school, lower absenteeism, and better academic performance, including higher test scores.
