McGuire bill would require school districts to enroll 650,000 Medi-Cal kids for free, low-cost meals

The Feed the Kids Act looks to help remedy the statistic that one in four California children go hungry by automatically enrolling low-income students in lunch programs.|

Despite living in a state that produces more than a third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts, 1 in 4 California children go hungry, putting them at risk of health, learning and behavioral problems.

Schools play a primary role in providing nutritious food to needy children but often struggle getting students and their families to submit applications for free or reduced-price meals.

State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, wants to cut back the paperwork through a bill he introduced that would require dozens of schools across the state and in the North Bay with high poverty rates to apply for full federal reimbursement to provide free meals to all of their students, a first step in combating childhood hunger in the state.

Known as the Feed the Kids Act, the bill is currently awaiting the governor’s signature after passing both houses earlier this month.

If signed, it would automatically enroll an estimated 650,000 low-income children statewide currently covered under Medi-Cal, including an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 kids in his district, which stretches along the North Coast from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border.

A Sonoma County breakdown wasn’t available.

“We produce the majority of the food in America. Yet, we have more kids in poverty now than we did prior to the recession,” McGuire said. “It’s simply unacceptable. We have to declare a war on childhood poverty in the state.

“This is one of the best tools we have to combat childhood poverty and to increase childhood success in public schools. There is no bigger bang for the buck for California kids.”

The bill requires school districts to use Medi-Cal data to qualify income-eligible students for free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch. It would cost the state $1.13 million to provide the meals. In return, it would receive more than $15 million in federal reimbursements, McGuire said. For every lunch meal, for example, McGuire said the state contributes 23 cents while the federal government gives $3.24.

Santa Rosa City Schools, the county’s largest school district, saw a big spike in the number of students in the meal program after getting Medi-Cal data from the state this school year. Ken Bunns, director of the district’s child nutrition services, said 8,500 kids - more than half the district’s students - qualified this year for free or low-cost meals, an increase of 1,000 compared to the previous year.

“Parents don’t have to fill out an application. All the information we need comes to us,” Bunns said. “It saves us money and staff time from having to manually input the data.”

Chris Van Heuvel, superintendent of the Healdsburg School District, said one of the challenges schools face is getting the applications to parents. Families often depend on their kids to turn in the forms.

He said the bill would make it easier for the district to ensure kids are fed.

“It saves schools time and money and better meets the nutritional needs of students, enabling them to be ready for learning in the school day,” said Van Heuvel, whose district started using Medi-Cal data after the state Department of Education encouraged it this summer.

The Cotati-Rohnert Park School District also is extracting Medi-Cal data through the state to enroll students into its meal programs. So far, the district has certified 1,416 students into the free program and 107 in the reduced price, food service coordinator Suzie King said.

Overall, 2,269 students receive free meals, while 535 students qualify for low-cost.

“This program allows us the opportunity to provide meals to more students without their having to submit an application,” King said. “I see it as a win-win for the district and our student population.”

Schools benefit when low-income students participate in the lunch program not only through federal reimbursements, but also from the state through the Local Control Funding Formula, said Chris Thomas, Petaluma City Schools’ chief business official. The funding formula takes into account the number of students on free and reduced-price meals.

“It goes to support the general fund, and being able to offer educational programs that target those students,” she said.

While some districts already use Medi-Cal data, McGuire said not all districts in the state do.

In 2015, he worked closely with the California Department of Education, food policy advocates, and other state legislators and agencies to automatically qualify 326,000 students in their schools’ free lunch program through the CalFresh and CalWORKS programs. It represented a 30 percent increase in the number of children approved for free lunch from the prior year.

Medi-Cal is a more effective way to enroll children; about 60 percent of the state’s kids are on Medi-Cal, compared to 24 percent on CalFresh.

His bill is modeled after a pilot program that helped 14 school districts from throughout the state enroll more low-income students into their programs. Overall, 241,000 students were added, representing a 13 percent increase.

“Every data shows when a student has a full stomach at school their test scores go up. Kids are more successful when they’re not going hungry,” McGuire said. “We should be making it as easy as possible for families to enroll.”

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 707-521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.

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