Teachers teach whoever enters the room and most do not make judgments about who is sitting in front of them because people have good days and bad, and people come from a variety of socio-economic strata. A child from a bad home brings some of that with them and the teacher must get that left at the classroom door so that a child’s education can take place leading to a better life and, perhaps, better circumstances in the future and, at least, a sense of hope.

A child who is distracted by hunger, will have a hard time concentrating on academics.

For some kids, the food they get at school, as bad as it might be, is the only full meal of the day, and it does not take long during cafeteria duty for a teacher to see that a certain segment of the student body opts for the more full meal lunch option with meat, vegetables, and fruit as opposed the throw away items like cardboard pizza and hamburgers that just really do not deserve the name.

When I started teaching, I kept a coffee can in my room that contained pencils and pens that students could use if they did not have one, whether or not they could afford one of their own. My intention was that no one who needed a pencil or pen should become the object of speculation as to why they needed a free one if they had to ask for one, and no student should be embarrassed by not having one for whatever reason or be too shy to ask for one. I eventually gave up that practice as, while most kids would return the pencil or pen for the next person’s use, too many just walked off, so, regardless which socio-economic strata a student was on, they would have to give me a shoe for collateral as they had a definite reminder they needed to return something to get the shoe back. I had one parent complain so her child was required to always have a pen or penci as there was no possibility of borrowing one in class. I was buying the pens and pencils with my own money so, being my property, I was in control of what was required to use it. The family had the money.

Likewise with the food thing, kids have to eat and some kids can’t afford to.

Most states, if they do not already have it, are moving to provide universal free school meals to all students. Republicans have a problem with that.

The Republican Study Committee has released its desired 2024 budget with one of its priorities being to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, from the School Lunch Program. This is the program that provides students with lunch regardless of ability to pay, and, not being universal to all schools, allows certain schools to provide free school lunches and free breakfast to all students rather than requiring a means-test and collecting applications on an individual basis.

In CEP schools, rich and middle class kids get a bonus as they are in the minority and are in a school of predominantly low income students.

No muss, no fuss. Just hand out the lunches.

However, the fact that a minority of kids who can afford to buy a lunch at a school where the majority of the student body is low income, has the Republicans preferring to starve the low income children rather than let the better off kids be included.

The need is obvious among low-income students, but, while rich kids might have rich parents, they are not rich themselves, and not all rich families are healthy with some paying little attention to the children.

States across the country are moving to provide universal free school meals to all our children. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to stop them from doing just that.

At this point California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont have moved to provide universal free school meals with at least another 21 states considering it.

Not content with not feeding the poor students, the proposed budget includes cutting Social Security and Medicare, imposing work requirements on “all federal benefit programs,” like food stamps and Medicare, and extending work requirements on those aged 55–64, but on the good side in the Republican mind, there is making Trump’s tax cuts for the top 1 percent permanent and bringing regulations, including those dealing with weakening environmental protection back.

For those who will claim that the ending of free school lunches is not a priority, the proposed budget states,

“The RSC Budget is more than just a financial statement. It is a statement of priorities,”

Why not guarantee that all our children are well fed as they learn and think about the world and their place in it, even the better off ones?

So, the poorer kids in these schools who need the free meals will lose them because of the presence of a minority of better off kids.

Usually the minority is simply overlooked. In this case a minority of students is the excuse to deprived the majority.

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