 | | School Lunch Aid
3/6/2007 11:10 AM
One of our greatest concerns as parents is that our children eat healthy meals. We can control this when they are at home. But what about when they are at school? Most kids get at least 1/3 of their daily calories and nutritional requirements at school. The link between proper nutrition and learning is well established.
- Over 60 years ago, National PTA and its members took the lead to see that the National School Lunch Act was passed. This Act established the school lunch program throughout the United States. Today this program serves over 29 million public and private school children, every school day.
- The federal government provides over 90% of the reimbursement to Minnesota school districts for providing these lunches. The state of Minnesota provides about 8%
- Currently Minnesota is reimbursing school districts 10.5 cents per lunch. In 2003, the governor and legislature cut funding for the state portion of the school lunch program by 22%.
- These cuts made it very difficult for school to provide nutritional and appetizing meals for Minnesota school children.
- Parents are demanding that more fresh fruits and vegetable and whole grains be offered in school lunch programs
- These foods are not only more nutritious than processed foods, but they also cost more.
- Minnesota PTA is supporting a bill(SF 1012 and HF 776) proposed by the school nutrition association which would raise the reimbursement by the state to school districts for school lunches from 10.5 cents to 12 cents for each school lunch served.
- Minnesota testified on March 6 before the Senate E-12 Education Budget Division in support of SF 1012 (companion bill in House is HF 776),
- Please call your legislators and encourage them to support SF 1012 and HF 776. Tell them that, providing nutritious and appetizing lunches at school needs to be a top priority. It is high time that we increase the cash reimbursement to our school districts for school lunches to make up for the lost ground due to the cuts in 2003.
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