SB663 H ED AM 4-8 #1
The Committee on Education moves to amend the bill on page
one, following the enacting section, by striking the remainder of
the bill and inserting in lieu thereof the following:
ARTICLE 5D. West Virginia Feed to Achieve Act.
§18-5D-1. Short title.
This act shall be known and may be cited as the West Virginia
Feed to Achieve Act.
§18-5D-2. Legislative findings; intent.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares that:
(1) Every child in school needs to have nutritious meals in
order to achieve his or her potential. Providing the best schools
and teachers alone does not ensure a child is mentally present and
able to learn. A growing body of research establishes that a
hungry child is less able to process the information provided and
is less likely to be attentive to the lessons being taught.
(2) President Harry S. Truman began the national school lunch
program in 1946 as a measure of national security to safeguard the
health and well-being of the nation's children and to encourage the
domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and
other food. Last year in West Virginia, 32.3 million school
lunches were served to students in public schools.
(3) Research shows that healthy eating, proper nutrition and
regular physical activity result in students who have: (A) Increased standardized achievement test scores; (B) improved
attendance; (C) reduced tardiness; (D) improved academic,
behavioral and emotional functioning; and (E) improved nutrition,
and for many students, the nutritious breakfast at school is
essential.
(4) Schools that provide universal breakfast programs also
report: (A) Decreases in discipline and psychological problems; (B)
decreases in visits to school nurses; (C) decreases in tardiness;
(D) increases in student attentiveness; (E) increases in
attendance; and (F) improved learning environments, and these
positive attributes are furthered through comprehensive healthy
schools policies that include quality nutrition, integrating
physical activity during the school day, and teaching children
about the importance of embracing a healthy active lifestyle.
(5) An effective school breakfast program is not an
interruption of the school day; it is an integral and vital part of
the school day.
(6) The participation rate for the school breakfast program
varies greatly among our counties. Those counties which have made
a determined effort to increase participation by offering programs
to best meet student needs, such as Grab-And-Go Breakfasts,
providing Breakfast in the Classroom or providing Breakfast After
First Period, are feeding significantly higher percentages of their
students.
(7) The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy reports that
in 2011 more than 25 percent of the children in West Virginia lived
in homes with a household income below the federal poverty line,
which is $23,050 for a family of four. About 50 percent of West
Virginia children live in homes with a household income below twice
the federal poverty level, $46,100 for a family of four, which is
approximately the level of the Work Force West Virginia self-
sufficiency standard.
(8) The majority of students from families below the self-
sufficiency standard are currently not eating breakfast at school.
On the average school day during the 2011-2012 school year, less
than half of the West Virginia students eligible for a federally
funded free breakfast actually received one. On that same average
day, only about one third of the students eligible to receive a
reduced price breakfast actually received one.
(9) In order to maximize each child's potential to learn and
develop, the Legislature, schools and communities must partner to
provide the most basic support for learning: nutritious meals.
(10) In order to maximize student participation in school
nutrition programs and to reduce the secondary adverse impacts of
poverty, it is important that schools provide nutritious meals
without a risk to students of being stigmatized as poor.
(11) High rates of childhood hunger and childhood obesity
occur simultaneously because children are not receiving healthy, nutritious food. According to the Data Resource Center for Child
and Adolescent Health and others, in 2008 West Virginia ranked 44
in overall prevalence of childhood obesity, with 35.5 percent of
children considered either overweight or obese.
(12) According to the 2008 Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance
System, which assesses weight status of children from low-income
families participating in the Women Infants and Children program,
28.3 percent of low income children age 2-5 are overweight or obese
in West Virginia.
(13) The Food Research and Action Center has found that
providing a balanced school breakfast may protect against childhood
obesity. School breakfast participation, particularly when
combined with comprehensive efforts that include regular physical
activity and promote healthy eating habits, is associated with a
lower body mass index, a lower probability of being overweight and
a lower probability of obesity, all of which help prevent a range
of chronic diseases including
Type II Diabetes, high blood
cholesterol, high blood pressure
, heart disease and stroke.
(14) Participation in federally funded meals in child care,
preschool, school, or summer settings is associated with a lower
body mass index among young, low income children.
(15) Private and nonprofit sectors have shown a willingness to
commit significant resources to addressing hunger in America,
leveraging federal programs and enlisting their employees, customers and clients to improve the availability and accessibility
of affordable, healthy food for those in need of assistance.
(16)
Public schools in this state and others are adopting a
continuum of policies to implement low cost, effective programs
that include physical activity, physical education, proper
nutrition and the promotion of healthy eating habits
, along with
involvement by school staff, families and communities, and a
variety of resources to assist schools in adopting and implementing
these programs are easily accessible on the internet and through
the Office of Healthy Schools in the West Virginia Department of
Education.
(b) In order to maximize the economies of scale and to access
all available federal funds to support our school nutrition
programs, the Feed to Achieve initiative directs schools to make
available and to promote the federally approved and subsidized
meals to all pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade students, to
make them readily available, and to consider reducing or
eliminating the cost to students if sufficient funds become
available.
(c) The Legislature intends to provide a framework for the
State Board of Education and the county boards of education to
provide, as effectively and as efficiently as possible, a minimum
of two nutritious, meals each school day to all students.
(d) The Legislature intends for the state and county boards of education to enter into public-private partnerships to eventually
provide free nutritious meals for all pre-kindergarten through
twelfth grade school children in West Virginia.
(e) The Legislature encourages county boards
to examine the
options available for comprehensive policies and programs to
improve student health and promote academic achievement
and to
establish a comprehensive policy on healthy schools that best meets
the needs of their student population.
(f) It is not the intention of the Legislature to allow or
encourage parents to abdicate their parental responsibility related
to providing healthy, nutritious meals for their children.
However, it is the intent of the Legislature that no child be
denied nutritious meals.
(g) It is the intent of the Legislature that healthy
nutritious school lunches be made available to all students in a
manner which maximizes participation and minimizes stigma attached
to participating low income students.
§18-5D-3. School nutrition programs.
(a) Each county board of education shall establish and operate
school nutrition programs under which, at a minimum, a nutritious
breakfast and lunch are made effectively available to all students
enrolled in the schools of the county in accordance with the State
Board of Education standards. The standards shall include
guidelines for determining the eligibility of students for paid, free and reduced meals. The standards shall also establish
procedures and guidelines for the Feed to Achieve initiative to
allow for the provision of healthy, nutritious meals to all
elementary school students, without cost to students, where schools
find it practical to do so.
(b) The Feed to Achieve initiative will be phased in for all
elementary schools as sufficient funds become available, through
donations, contributions and payments made by individuals,
communities, businesses, organizations and parents or guardians on
behalf of students. Nothing in this article prohibits any school
from providing free meals to all of its students.
(c) Each county board of education shall:
(1) Require all schools to adopt a delivery system approved by
the state Office of Child Nutrition, no later than the 2015 school
year, that ensures all students are given an adequate opportunity
to eat breakfast. These approved systems shall include, but are
not limited to, Grab-And-Go Breakfasts, Breakfast In The Classroom
or Breakfast After First Period; and
(2) Collaborate with the state Office of Child Nutrition to
develop strategies and methods to increase the percentage of
children participating in the school breakfast and lunch nutrition
programs.
(d) In addition to other statistics, the county boards of
education, in consultation with the state Office of Child Nutrition, shall determine the number of children in each school
who are participating in each meal offered by the school; the
number of children who are not eating each meal offered by the
school; and the total daily attendance.
(e) The state Office of Child Nutrition shall report to the
Joint Committee on Government and Finance, the Select Committee on
Children and Poverty and the Legislative Oversight Commission on
Education Accountability on or before December 31, 2015, and each
year thereafter, on the impacts of the Feed to Achieve Act and any
recommendations for legislation.
(f) County boards of education may utilize the nonprofit funds
or foundations established in section four of this article or other
available funds to offset the costs of providing free meals, after
school and summer nutrition programs to elementary students.
(g) If at any time federal financial appropriations to this
state for school nutrition programs are terminated, county boards
of education are hereby authorized, but not required, to continue
the programs at their own expense.
(h) Classroom teachers may not be required to participate in
the operation of the school breakfast program as part of their
regular duties.
§18-5D-4. Creating public-private partnerships; creating non-profit
foundation or fund; audit.
(a) The Department of Education and each county board of education shall promptly establish a fund that is restricted solely
for the receipt and expenditure of gifts, grants and bequests for
the purposes of this article and may establish in lieu thereof a
nonprofit foundation for this purpose. The purpose of the fund or
nonprofit foundation is to provide supplemental or matching funds
to increase participation in the nutrition programs in the Feed to
Achieve initiative set forth in subsection (c) of this section.
The Department of Education shall utilize its fund or nonprofit
foundation to assist county boards of education in counties whose
fund or foundation lacks sufficient business, industry and
individual contributors to fund the Feed to Achieve nutrition
programs.
(b) Financial support for the fund or foundation
may come from
either public or private
gifts, grants, contributions, bequests and
endowments
.
(c) Expenditures from the state or county funds or by the
foundations shall be used for provision of food to students through
any of the programs or initiatives approved by the Office of Child
Nutrition, including the following programs: School Breakfast
Program, National School Lunch Program, the Summer Food Service
Program, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, the Child and Adult
Care Food Program, the farm to school initiative, and community
gardens. Expenditures may also be made for initiatives developed
with the Department of Health and Human Resources and public-private partnerships to provide outreach and nutritional meals when
students are not in school.
(d) No administrative expenses or personnel expenses for any
of the state departments implementing this act, the State Board of
Education, any county board of education, school or program may be
paid from the funds or by the foundations.
(e) Individuals or businesses that contribute to the funds or
foundations may specify schools or nutrition programs for which the
contribution is to be used.
(f) The Department of Education and county boards of education
may establish public-private partnerships to enhance current or
advance additional nutrition programs that provide nutritious food
for children to take home for weekend meals.
(g) The Department of Education and county boards of education
shall form or expand existing partnerships with the federal and
state departments of agriculture, Department of Health and Human
Resources, local master gardeners, county extension agents or other
experts in the field of agriculture or gardening to develop
community gardens, farm to school programs and other such programs
that teach students how to grow and produce healthy food and
provide healthy food to the students.
(h) The Department of Education shall collaborate with the
Department of Health and Human Resources to develop effective
strategies and programs such as after school nutrition outreach and programs that improve the healthy lifestyle of all students in pre-
kindergarten through twelfth grade. The Department of Health and
Human Resources may propose rules for promulgation in accordance
with the provisions of article three, chapter twenty-nine-a of this
code to effectuate any programs so developed.
(i) All moneys contributed to a fund or foundation established
pursuant to this section and all expenditures made therefrom shall
be audited as part of the annual independent audit of the State
Board of Education and the county boards of education.