Schools offering dinner programs

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Too often it is after the fact that teachers discover their students are worrying less about math and reading and more about their next meal.

So Doug White, principal of Garfield Elementary School in inner-city Kansas City, was relieved when his school, like many across the country, began offering dinner to students enrolled in after-school child-care or tutoring programs.

With breakfast and lunch already provided for poor students, many children now are getting all their meals at school. "When . . . we are asking them to sit down and concentrate and do their work, and they might be hungry . . . we definitely want to do everything we can to help the kids," White said.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2010, provides federal funds for the after-school dinner program in areas where at least half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Previously, the program was limited to 13 states and the District of Columbia. Most states had provided money for only after-school snacks.

Since the change, districts have started rolling out dinner programs. The Congressional Budget Office expects nearly 21 million additional suppers to be served by 2015, and that number will rise to 29 million by 2020. The added spending would total about $641 million from 2011 to 2020.

Advocates for the poor praise the program, but there have been complaints from conservatives who question whether the schools should be feeding kids three meals a day.

Kate Lareau has mixed feelings about the program, though her first-grader enjoys eating dinner at a Memphis, Tenn., elementary school. She said she can afford to feed her daughter, but knows others can't.

"Do we need to provide all three meals? I'm not sure," she said. "But I personally know children who don't get any food after they get home. I don't want those kids to be hungry for sure."