Give school food service workers the support they deserve - Education Votes

Give school food service workers the support they deserve - Education Votes

Give school food service workers the support they deserve

The unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic include school food service workers all across the country. Even when schools were closed, they reported to work and found innovative ways to keep kids from going hungry. Yet, many of these workers don’t have access to the training they need for this important work. The Improving Training for School Food Service Workers Act (S. 1834/H.R. 2897) would help make training available that maximizes hands-on opportunities during regular, paid working hours.

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Email your senators and representative and ask them to cosponsor the Improving Training for School Food Service Workers Act.

Give school food service workers the support they deserve - Education Votes

Educators call on Congress to ensure healthy school meals for all students - Education Votes

Educators call on Congress to ensure healthy school meals for all students - Education Votes

Educators call on Congress to ensure healthy school meals for all students

By Cindy Long

Susan Jones, a nutrition services professional in Colonial School District, New Castle, Delaware, has seen far too many students skip lunch because they were afraid they couldn’t afford it or were embarrassed to hand the cashier the card announcing that they qualified for free meals.

“The best possible use of my tax dollar would be to feed a kid,” Jones says, who dreads seeing hungry kids avoid the line and the stigma of the “free lunch” label.  “Universal school meals would make a huge difference at the  register. Everyone’s going to get lunch, no questions asked. I hope it’s forever.”

If lawmakers are successful, it will be.

Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Gwen Moore of Wisconsin introduced the Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021, which would permanently provide free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack to all school children regardless of income while eliminating school meal debt.

Susan Jones

“In the richest country in the world, it is an outrage that millions of children struggle with hunger every day,” Sanders said in a statement. “Every child deserves a quality education free of hunger. What we’ve seen during this pandemic is that a universal approach to school meals works. We cannot go backwards.”

An emergency nutrition waiver program was implemented in spring of 2020 as COVID-19 closed schools and businesses, triggering an economic crisis and widespread food insecurity. The waivers made it much easier to feed all students, but if universal school meals don’t continue, educators say, many students will fall back into hunger.

There is a large refugee and immigrant population in the Phoenix Union High School District, where Vanessa Jimenez CONTINUE READING: Educators call on Congress to ensure healthy school meals for all students - Education Votes