108A LB627 LPS Testimony

March 14, 2023

Senator Dave Murman, Chairperson
Senator Joni Albrecht
Senator Tom Briese
Senator Lynne Walz
Senator Danielle Conrad
Senator Rita Sanders
Senator Justin Wayne
Senator Lou Ann Linehan

Good afternoon distinguished members of the Education Committee:

My name is Andrew Ashelford, A-N-D-R-E-W. A-S-H-E-L-F-O-R-D. I am the Nutrition Services Director for Lincoln Public Schools. I am here to speak as a proponent for LB627, and to also add the Nebraska State Education Association to my testimony.

I believe that the most important point of the bill is that it directs the benefits directly to the student and the families attending school.

By ensuring that all students have access to free breakfasts and lunches, it ensures that poor nutrition will not impact students’ ability to access the educational experiences of the day. Researchers have looked closely at the impact of a student’s diet and nutrition on academic and behavioral outcomes. Good Nutrition helps students show up at school prepared to learn. Because improvements in nutrition make students healthier, students are likely to have fewer absences and attend class more frequently. Studies also show that malnutrition leads to behavior problems.

School meals also provide high-quality, balanced diets that regularly include produce, protein, and dairy products from local producers. Researchers generally find that a higher quality diet is associated with better performance on exams. Other studies find that improving the quality of students’ diets leads to students being on task more often, increases math test scores, possibly increases reading test scores, and increases attendance.

Additionally, school lunches are one of the few expenses for families that they face daily. There are times when families are experiencing financial issues, and they cannot pay for lunch on certain days. Students are always provided a Class A lunch, even if they cannot pay for it on a particular day. This bill would eliminate the risk that families would fall behind in their lunch payments to school and build up a negative balance that puts more pressure on families. This bill would eliminate the daily and long-term financial pressures on families.

Lincoln currently has eight schools that are participating in the Community Eligibility Program. LB627’s requirement that all schools reaching the 62.5% free and reduced eligibility participate in the Community Eligibility Program is a fair and reasonable requirement to maximize federal support prior to receiving reimbursement from the state that would cover the additional cost for providing meals to those students who do not qualify for free and reduced lunches and do not attend a Community Eligibility Program School.

For these three reasons, we thank Senator Bostar for bringing this bill, and we support LB627 and urge you to vote it out of committee for consideration by the full Unicameral.

Thank you for your time, I would be happy to answer any questions.