With young students and their parents fully in "Back To School" mode, local papers have started to swirl around the topic of school lunches and the Child Nutrition Act, which is set to expire at the end of September.

In today's Daily Comet, a local paper in Louisiana, reporter Thad Angelloz gives an overview of how important the National School Lunch Act was, and talks about the strides that their schools are taking to ensure a healthy school meal.

Monica Walthers, the child nutrition supervisor from that school district, says that the National School Lunch Program - which is funded through the Child Nutrition Act - changed the entire culture of school cafeterias.

"This happened as a direct result of the Depression. They (government) understood how important it was for them to provide meals to children attending school."

Walthers' district, especially, is trying to ensure that the lunches they put out are nutritious. Gumbo, for instance, is now made without oils and is made with turkey sausage.

Child-nutrition supervisor Lauren Fletcher added that the program "continues to get better." "There's always things you can change...but we think we're hitting the mark for our students."

Over in North Carolina another child nutrition director, Nicole Mayernik, is working hard to provide "a healthy start and a happy belly" to her students, says the Watuga Democrat. Among her tasks are meeting and exceeding federal guidelines for nutrition, and closing the eligibility gap that exists so that low-income students have access to school meals.

"We want to ensure we're meeting the needs of the community and the students. Right now, we're working hard on our free and reduced lunch applications to let parents know they can receive free and reduced lunches and breakfasts."

She also credits her staff of food service workers, recognizing the important role they play. "I couldn't do this job without the staff's hard work. They have a relationship with the children and school administration."

Ultimately, she thinks everyone would benefit if the school meals program provided more access to school breakfasts. Only half of the children eligible for free or reduced lunches - 10 million out of the total 20 million children - have access to school breakfasts.

"Unhealthy students cannot learn," said Mayernik. "We see that when students don't eat breakfast. Their test scores go down. We try to offer them something here. Something is better than nothing. Can we meet those needs within financial restraints? We'd love to, but right now in child nutrition, we're taking it one bite at a time."

Over at our partner site, the Campaign for Quality Services, we've been pushing the notion of an improved Child Nutrition Act that raises standards for food service worker, works to close the eligibility gap, and expands the school breakfast program.

You can check out our plan and give your support here: http://campaignforqualityservices.org/a/schoolmeals/index.php.

Record job losses and high unemployment will "push thousands more children into poverty," many for the first time, says Tony Pugh, a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers. The change could amount to a record number of children in the United States that will rely on free and reduced-price meals at school.

One indicator of the possible increased enrollment is the record number of families enrolled in the food stamp program, called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Children enrolled in that program are automatically eligible for both the school lunch and school breakfast programs. In May, 34.4 million people "used food stamps to buy groceries," an increase of 2 percent from April.

The increased enrollment is happening throughout the country. In central Florida's Polk County schools, there's been a 50 percent jump in the "number of students who pre-qualified for free lunches." In Illinois, Chicago public schools "have seen a 30 percent increase, going from 107,144 children eligible for free and reduced-cost meals at the start of last year" to a total of 139,417 this year."

Many of these students "will be newcomers to poverty," consisting of "the sons and daughters of laid-off energy and service sector employees or of relocated job seekers who've found it tougher than expected to find work."

While the districts currently receive a reimbursement from the United States Department of Agriculture in the amount of $2.68 per school meal, a report last year by the School Nutrition Association "found that the average cost to prepare a school meal was $2.90 in the last school year." It's a situation that leaves districts, who are already strapped for cash, in a difficult situation.

To learn more about how you can help work to ensure that all children in need have access to hot meals, and how we can increase the federal reimbursement rate, click here: http://campaignforqualityservices.org/a/schoolmeals/index.php.

Leslie Williams, a school food service worker, has been at the job for 20 years.

When she talks about her job, she lovingly refers to the children as "her babies." They rely on her to take care of them and cook them a wholesome meal during lunch. Sometimes, it's the only hot meal that they get that day.

"You know some of these children aren't going to get another meal until they come back in on Monday, and that's the hardest part of all," she says.

I had the pleasure of meeting Leslie just the other week, when she was in town for our Lobby Day, where she talked to Congress about the need to improve the Child Nutrition Act.

I was moved by her dedication and commitment to her job - and, even more, to the children that she serves. She speaks with a passion, whether she's talking about cooking, ensuring that every child is fed, or when she has a thought on how to improve school meals.

I wanted to share this video with you - it's from the conversation that we shared - because I feel that we have much to learn from her.

Here's the video:

You can help Leslie improve the Child Nutrition Act by writing a letter to Congress here: http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/nutritionact.

For the first time in the 63-year history of our nation's School Lunch Program, front-line food service workers are on Capitol Hill today to petition their government to strengthen the program that serves food to more than 30 million children every day.

Because of the current economic crisis, more and more families are relying on school food programs to provide their children with a complete and well-balanced meal. Last month, USA Today reported that "nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation's schools, an all-time high" and that "many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals' rising costs.

On Capitol Hill, the 80 food service workers - members of Service Workers United, and from all over the country - are advocating for stronger USDA Child Nutrition Programs that will:

• Improve food safety, nutrition, health and wellness, and customer service by raising workplace standards and providing living wages, benefits, paid sick leave, and training for all school food service workers.
• Increase federal reimbursement rates for meals to enable schools to cover the rising costs of meeting dietary guidelines and to purchase fresh, healthy foods.
• Reach more struggling families by relaxing eligibility requirements, streamlining application processes, and allowing for regional variations in cost of living in determining eligibility.

These 80 food service workers are representative of the more than 420,000 workers employed in school cafeterias throughout the country. Although these workers' mission is to fight poverty and hunger work, some of them are paid as low as $6.55 an hour with no benefits.

Do your part by signing on to tell Congress we need an improved Child Nutrition Act: http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/nutritionact

Today, the Associated Press published an interesting profile on the Philadelphia, PA school district and its pilot program for feeding its hungry children through school meals.

In the Philadelphia model, the school district provides free school meals for all children in schools "with a high percentage of low-income students." These "universal" meals are served in schools where at least 75 percent of the student body meets the low-income threshold. In Philly, more than 85 percent of students qualify.

But there's another interesting component of the Philly program: there are no forms necessary to enroll in the program.

By ridding of the forms, food service directors claim it "eliminates the costly bureaucracy that both deters needy families from applying for subsidized meals and stigmatizes those who do complete the forms." According to the AP, experts say many children who are eligible and would benefit from the program do not participate because of language barriers, literacy issues and humiliation when completing the necessary forms.

The district maintains that there's another benefit to the Philly model: the money saved on the administrative costs allows the school to absorb the costs of the free meals not already covered by government reimbursements.

According to the AP, the program "benefits students and especially working parents, who save time and money knowing their children will have a meal waiting for them at school."

The article quotes Janet Hernandez, a mother of three, who says that "sometimes, we need that extra help as far as food goes. That's one thing that we have to worry about as parents."

While Bush Administration officials threatened to close the program by 2010, President Obama's new Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, pledges to continue the program.

Key to the program - and replicating the model elsewhere, like in New York City and Los Angeles, where there is interest - is the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act later this year. An improved Child Nutrition Act is a top priority for the thousands of school food service workers that SEIU represents.

Read the full article here and everything you need to know about the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act here on our partner site, the Campaign for Quality Services.

Thousands of school food service workers in New Jersey are living at or near poverty, according to a new study from Rutgers University's Center for Women and Work. The study, authored by Dr. Mary McCain, addresses the scope of the problem in general, and then offers recommendations to fix these problems.

School lunches offer many children the only assurance that children of low-income families receive at least one well-balanced and healthy meal a day.

Despite their important work, New Jersey's public school food service workers are "struggling to support their own families," since their "pay is low, benefits are rare, and opportunities for advancement are limited."

The report found that the average hourly wage for food preparation workers in educational services was only $8.15, and revealed that many of these jobs pay no more than the NJ state minimum wage of $7.15. Many times, sick days are not provided, raising "concerns for both the health and safety of the students and the workers" when there is an "economic incentive" to "go to work while ill."

McCain's report offers specific policy recommendations, including:

1. Increase wages and benefits to a level to sustain families and to reduce reliance on state-funded safety net programs. This is key to raising workers out of poverty. Benefits, such as sick days "should be required," as "a food service worker should never have an economic incentive to go to work when ill."
2. Establish a state system for requiring and providing a "food handler permit" for food service workers: A permit, much like the ones provided by California, Oregon, and Arizona, would provide " a validation of necessary knowledge" by "ensuring that current and potential employees have certified their knowledge of food safety and nutrition."
3. Require that contracted food service workers receive training from qualified training programs: Training could include "information about regulations governing school meal programs, menu planning, and other issues in addition to food handling."

Thousands of school food service workers in New Jersey are living at or near poverty, according to a new report commissioned by SEIU Local 32BJ. The report found that the average hourly wage for food preparation workers in educational services was only $8.15, and revealed that many of these jobs pay no more than the NJ state minimum wage of $7.15.

The report, prepared by the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work/School of Management, ascertained that 64 percent of NJ K-12 school districts contract their food service to an outside company and that those private sector cafeteria jobs are largely part-time and typical offer with no affordable health benefits. As a result, most workers are uninsured or forced to turn to the state's public health insurance programs-- a result that contributes largely to the school food service industry acting as one of the biggest drains on New Jersey FamilyCare, as over 6,300 employees and their children covered by the taxpayer-funded state health assistance plan.