We don’t need to ask kids why they’re hungry, we just need to feed them

A version of this column originally appeared in The Alpena News.

When I was a high school teacher, I kept granola bars in my desk. Any student could have one if they needed a bite to eat. I didn’t ask about their parents’ income or what neighborhood they lived in. If a kid was hungry, none of that mattered. What mattered was that they couldn’t learn on an empty stomach, and I had granola bars.

I saw it often, and I see it now with my own teenage kid. Getting students excited to learn about the structure of a good essay is tough, even on the best of days. Kids would come in to first hour sluggish, not ready to meet the morning and certainly not ready for their cheerful English teacher to give them sentence starters. 

But sometimes it was clear they were dealing with more than just the early morning blues. Maybe they rejected the kale smoothie their parents prepared. Maybe they slept through their alarm and had to rush out of the house. Or maybe they were facing food insecurity. Whatever the reason, they got a snack from Mrs. Ross or one of their other teachers. Because teachers know that kids need food.

Thankfully, so do many of our leaders in Michigan. This week, steps were taken in the Legislature to make sure that no-cost, healthy school meals would be a permanent policy in our state. That means every child, regardless of income or ZIP code, gets the food they need to be ready to learn. 

The evidence behind this move is strong. Food security is linked not just to better health, but to higher attendance and stronger academic performance. And for our younger learners, nutrition during childhood matters in ways that compound over time, including brain development and behavioral regulation. 

Universal school meals are especially important here in Michigan, where our state is ranked 42nd in the nation for education. In Michigan, 3 in 4 fourth-graders are not proficient in reading, and 3 in 4 eighth-graders are not proficient in math, and low educational attainment has been named a direct threat to the state’s economic future. Meanwhile, 1 in 8 Michigan kids experiences hunger. Children need the basics before they can be ready to learn, and school meals are a great start. 

Northern and urban Michigan communities benefit the most from school meals, as they experience the highest rates of child poverty and food insecurity. For kids carrying anxiety about where their next meal is coming from, the relief matters for mental health too, at a moment when youth mental health has become a crisis of its own. And of course, another benefit is that when ALL kids get a meal, the stigma goes away in the lunch line.

For parents, of course, the benefits are obvious. Eliminating the cost of school meals saves an estimated $850 per student each year. That’s a year’s worth of diapers, five months of electric bills, or a couple of hundred gallons of gas. And no kale smoothies to dump down the drain. 

The Legislature and Gov. Whitmer took a meaningful step by funding universal school meals, but we need to take it beyond a year-to-year program. Senate Bills 784 and 785 would turn this year’s good program into a long-term plan that families and kids can count on.

I’m not in the classroom anymore, but I know that every kid deserves to eat — and more than just a granola bar. I hope the plan for permanent universal school meals in Michigan makes it to Gov. Whitmer’s desk soon.