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School Nutritionists Want More Funding

By Shelley Kofler, KERA News

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-912902.mp3

Dallas, TX – School nutritionists winding up their national conference in Dallas want Congress to increase funding for free school meals provided to low-income children as KERA's Shelley Kofler reports.

More than half of the children in Dallas, Fort Worth and other North Texas districts receive free or reduced priced meals at school.

Currently Congress reimburses a school district $2.68 for a "free" school lunch, but it costs about 24-cents more to prepare that meal. And Leah Schmidt of the School Nutrition Association says the cost for local schools will increase with new, healthy food requirements.

Schmidt: "If we could get the funding up so it would cover the cost of producing the meal then we could offer more and better things on the plate."

Both the U.S. House and Senate have recommended additional school lunch funding in child nutrition legislation pending before Congress, but passage of the legislation has been delayed.

School nutritionists are also calling for Congress to expand the free meal program to include children from low-income families that currently earn a little too much to qualify.

Email Shelley Kofler