WEST virginia Legislature
2017 regular session
By
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to the Committee on Education then Finance.
A BILL to amend and
reenact §18-5D-2, §18-5D-3 and §18-5D-4 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as
amended, all relating to the West Virginia Feed to Achieve Act; and providing
that school nutrition plans include take home meals for low income students or
any student who requests take home meals
Be it enacted by the
Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-5D-2, §18-5D-3
and §18-5D-4 of the Code of
West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 5D. 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 nations’ 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, including take home meals for low income
students or any student who requests take home meals.
(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 prekindergarten 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 prekindergarten 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 and take home meals for low income students or any
student who requests take home meals 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 and take home meals for low income students or
any student who requests take home meals 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 no later than the 2017 school
year these systems shall include take home meals programs; 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 and
take home meals 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 nonprofit 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, including take home meals programs.
(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 prekindergarten 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.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is
to require that school nutrition plans include take home meals for low income
students or any student who requests take home meals.
Strike-throughs indicate language
that would be stricken from a heading or the present law, and underscoring
indicates new language that would be added.