The bill (S.100) would make Vermont the first state in the nation to provide breakfast free of charge to all public school students every school day. The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill on Friday, and then it will move to the House for consideration.
The Senate also committed to a path to providing full Universal School Meals (breakfast and lunch) to all public school students by directing a task force to develop a plan to provide universal lunch by the 2026-27 school year. As S.100 is written, the task force would submit its plan to the Vermont General Assembly in January 2022.
According to recent studies released by the National Food Access and COVID Research Team, and the University of Vermont, 1 in 3 people in Vermont have experienced food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Families with children have been twice as likely to face hunger.
In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took emergency steps to make school and summer meals available to all children for free, regardless of their family's income.
School nutrition teams across Vermont acted quickly to implement systems to deliver meals on buses and arrange curbside pickups. Vermont was the only state to increase the total number of breakfasts and lunches served in April 2020 when compared to April 2019, according to a Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) snapshot report. The USDA has extended these emergency measures into the 2021-22 school year.
"Hunger in Vermont before the COVID-19 pandemic was already unacceptably high. Today, it's higher than at any point in the last two decades, including the Great Recession. That doesn't go away right after the emergency order is lifted," said Senator Chris Pearson (P/D-Chittenden), a Senate champion for S.100.
"By passing universal school breakfast, and setting Vermont down a path to full universal school meals, we're making the health of our kids and classrooms a top priority."
"When all our kids have regular access to nutritious meals that they can eat together – and when no student is singled out for needing meals or for having school meal debt – they all get a better education," said Senate Education Committee Chair Brian Campion (D-Bennington). "With S.100's passage, Vermont will again lead the nation by demonstrating that food is fundamentally linked to educational outcomes." ■