Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner Teri Weber, left, and Susan Hart serve lunch this week at Wallace Elementary School, where few pay full price. |
Hot, hearty - and free
Thursday, October 14, 2004 10:02 AM PDT
By Hope Anderson
Printable version
E-mail this articleOn a recent afternoon, Tanya Bailey-Trumbo of Kelso sat opposite her son in the Wallace Elementary School cafeteria, watching the kindergartner grin between bites of turkey sub sandwich.
Thankfully, his meal didn't cost her anything.
The family moved near her son's school last summer, and Bailey-Trumbo's husband still is dredging for a job. She works part-time as a private home care-taker, but the family barely scrapes by.
She frequently keeps her son company during breakfast and lunch at the school in south Kelso, but she can't afford to regularly join in with him.
"I know for adults, it's $3. That's why I don't eat here," said Bailey-Trumbo, 36.
Hers is among the overwhelming number of Wallace families who qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. Almost nine out of 10 students are enrolled in the program, the highest percentage of any school in Kelso.
Numbers at Wallace and in the Kelso district dipped slightly this fall, but in Longview, they have edged up to almost half the students eligible -- a pattern that has developed in the last few years.
School officials carefully monitor those numbers. Schools with high percentages of students on free and reduced lunch often have a host of other problems, such as meeting students' basic needs, attention demands and learning challenges, educators say.
For some of the kids at Wallace elementary, school meals may be the only ones they get all day long.
"It just rips your heart. It's just too bad," Principal Don Iverson said.
Before breakfast is served, or the first class begins, pockets of Wallace students hover in the tetherball pole-studded courtyard outside the cafeteria.
"They get here before I get here. They beat me," said Jan Tofte, a breakfast cashier and instructional assistant who usually starts her day around 7:30 a.m.
Staff tell of students who cut off the ends of their shoes to make room for growing feet. The school holds a clothing drive during the summer, and parents line up outside to pick through the clothing.
During the year, staff can recommend students who may need a sweater or jacket or a new pair of sneakers from the school's shoe stash.
"I love being able to help them," said Sheri Townsend, an intervention specialist at Wallace. "Putting a new pair of shoes on a kid and hear, 'Thank you so much.' They're just so happy."
"They trust people at school, and they know we care."
Families qualify for the free and reduced meal program based on their annual income. This year, a family of four in Washington must earn $34,873 or less for the kids to be eligible.
In Longview, regular-priced lunches cost $1.45 for elementary students and $1.75 for middle and high school students. In Kelso, regular-priced lunches cost $1.75 for elementary students and $2 for secondary students.
Reduced lunch prices are 40 cents for all students in both districts.
For September, Longview's preliminary numbers show 48 percent of the students are enrolled in the free and reduced meal program -- a 10 percent increase from 2002.
Free and reduced meal rates in most schools in both the Kelso and Longview districts exceed the state average, 37 percent.
Kelso school officials expected enrollment in the program to increase this fall, considering the area's sputtering economy and a new electronic system that makes it easier for families to sign up.
Surprisingly, the numbers dropped district-wide. School officials attribute the decline to falling enrollment. Also, with the district's reconfiguration from a junior high to a middle school system this year, sixth-graders have moved from the elementaries to the middle schools, which may be a factor in Wallace and other elementaries' declines, school officials said.
Pinning down free and reduced enrollment percentages can be tough, educators say, because the numbers can fluctuate month to month. For example, at the end of last spring, Wallace hit the 95 percent mark for free and reduced meals, compared to 86 percent this fall.
Longview officials say the district's increase this fall may stem from a new way families can join the program.
Since 2002, the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has used a computer system to match up families eligible for food stamps with the free and reduced meal program, eliminating paperwork that some families failed to turn in, school officials said.
That factor may have contributed to a 5 percent statewide increase for students eligible for free and reduced meals from 2002-03 to 2003-04, said George Sneller, director of nutrition at OSPI.
The upside to having high percentages of free and reduced enrollment is the ability to offer extra programs (see breakout). At Wallace, the staff host reading feeds and math nights. Parents and students are provided a free meal and encouraged to work on schoolwork together.
"Just getting them to read with their kids, just to get them involved is so important," Townsend said.
Some students at Wallace struggle to make it to school on time, or at all. So staff have come up with an incentive plan to get them there: a "Breakfast Club" that gathers each morning in a separate classroom for a chance to socialize and eat a free breakfast. About two dozen students are involved in the club.
"We make an extra effort to get them here," Iverson said.
Staff members recommend students for the club who frequently are absent or tardy because of household duties or having to get ready in the morning by themselves, Iverson said.
Those extra efforts have made a difference for Karen Brackney and two of her children, who attend Wallace and receive free meals there.
"It's a fun place for the kids," said Brackney, who is an at-home mom and whose husband works for a local towing company.
She used to pack lunches for them before she found out the kids could eat for free, which has been a blessing, said Brackney, 30.
"It makes it really hard having to pay all the bills at the house," she said. "It makes it easier for some parents."
Impact of free-reduced meals
Schools with high percentages of free and reduced enrollment have more opportunities for program funding.
Here's a look at the programs offered by Wallace Elementary:
• After-school programs: Students have academic and enrichment activities after school. The program is funded by the 21st Century grant.
• Family support night: Funded by a Health Care Foundation grant, counselors meet with some Wallace families weekly about parenting and other topics.
• Reading Feeds and Math Nights: Parents and students are provided a free meal and encouraged to work on schoolwork together.
• November food drive: The school feeds about 40 to 45 families around the Thanksgiving holiday.
Ways to help the Wallace school:
• Volunteer time. "Kids need to see new people," said Sheri Townsend, an intervention specialist. "They need that support to see that people care about them."
• Donate items for food and clothing drives.
• Support after-school programs. "We're doing far more than child care. We're caring for their basic needs," said Mollie DuBois, a 21st Century coordinator at Wallace.
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