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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

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Bill Clinton is hospitalized for observation and testing after developing a fever; Biden commutes most federal death sentences before Trump takes office; Proposed post office 'slowdown' threatens rural Americans; Report: Tax credits shrink poverty for NM kids, families; Tiny plastic pieces enter the body in ways you'd never think of.

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Biden commutes the sentences of most federal death row inmates, the House Ethics Committee says former Rep. Gaetz may have committed statutory rape, and the national archivist won't certify the ERA without congressional approval.

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Rural folks could soon be shut out of loans for natural disasters if Project 2025 has its way, Taos, New Mexico weighs options for its housing shortage, and the top states providing America's Christmas trees revealed.

Federal program brings free breakfast and lunch to more AL students

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Friday, August 9, 2024   

Thousands of Alabama students headed back to the classroom will get free breakfast and lunch at school.

Six school districts will be opting into the federal Community Eligibility Program for the first time, allowing every student to eat free. Schools once needed to have at least 25% of their students qualify for free school meals. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture loosened the participation threshold to 40%, helping more schools qualify.

LaTrell Clifford Wood, a hunger policy advocate with Alabama Arise, said this will account for the needs of all students so they can thrive in the classroom.

"In our rural communities, as well as more urban counties," she said, "there can be fluctuating degrees to which childhood food insecurity is experienced in those counties and municipalities. "

In Alabama, there is about $44 million of school meal debt, according to the Education Data Initiative.

Last school year, 118 out of 150 Alabama school districts and charter schools participated in the CEP program, up from just 51 districts in 2022-23, according to the state. Despite this increase, Clifford Wood said there is still a focus on making sure all students have access to meals. However, not all schools in Alabama can offer universal meals.

She said finances are a factor that play a role in the program's expansion.

"The federal reimbursement for that program leaves a lot of districts and counties in the red when it comes to school meal debt," she said. "So the rate that schools or districts are reimbursed at is not matching inflation."

In the future, Wood said, she hopes to see the state step in to support universal school meals. She said the importance of universal school meals extends far beyond addressing hunger benefiting students' overall health.

"What universal school breakfast does is, particularly, it has been seen to address chronic absenteeism, prove adolescent mental health," she said, "but beyond that, improve long-term learning outcomes and alleviate the school-to-prison pipeline."

Children in households that receive benefits such as SNAP and Medicaid, those in foster care, and houseless children also qualify for free or reduced meals.


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