About 700,000 kids attend our public schools. Most qualify for free and reduced lunch. Many face food insecurity and count on school meals as the most reliable nutrition they receive each week.

Good nutrition is essential to building strong minds and bodies, and it makes kids ready to take on the challenges of a school day. And we have an historic opportunity to do so much more for so many children.

School lunch and breakfast programs are subsidized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which partially reimburses districts for meals served based on the income level of the student’s family. Districts use this money and their own to devise meal programs, knowing that kids grow and learn better when their nutritional needs are met.

There is a powerful connection between nutrition and brain development. Over time, school lunch programs have grown more tastier and more nutritious, such as a range of 50 to 71 out of 100 on the federal Healthy Eating Index.

Little Axe, for example, hired a chef to make the kind of healthy meals that kids want to eat. The Oklahoma City Public Schools district has four nutritionists on staff who survey kids and attend to meal quality.

During the pandemic, federal programs expanded to feed everyone, and this was a welcome respite for working families. But with the expiration of these programs, districts are having to make tough choices.

Money only goes so far. Norman Public Schools absorbed $300,000 in lunch debt last year. Other districts try to collect from families by sending notes home with kids, which can be humiliating. Others serve cheese sandwiches and water to poor kids who have to see their peers eating full meals.

How can a kid learn and grow under these conditions? We can do better.

Last month, the federal government expanded access to the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows districts to receive wider, but still partial, reimbursements. Oklahoma City schools use the program to forgo lunch debt altogether, at some cost to its budget.

Potentially we could see lots of suburban and rural districts embrace the provision, ending lunch debt and lunch shaming and improving health and learning outcomes across Oklahoma. It just takes a little leadership from the state Legislature to help districts bridge the gap between the cost of meals and federal reimbursements.

I believe we could expand lunch provisions to, say 250% of the federal poverty level, for about $20 million to $30 million. This modest investment would yield enormous gains in food security, test score and child well-being. We could do this for just a few dollars per meal served.

We should have the courage to do this. I was proud to work with a bipartisan group of legislators, including Reps. Mark Lawson, R-Sapulpa, and Annie Menz, D-Norman, and Sen. Jessica Garvin, R-Duncan, in support of legislation filed last year by Jeff Boatman, R-Tulsa.

Our children are worth it.

Rep. John Waldron represents Tulsa’s District 77 in the Oklahoma House. Previously, he worked as a social studies and history teacher at Booker T. Washington High School.

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