Traci Woodard
 |  Guest Columnist

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  • Ohio public eschool students are not eligible for free or reduced lunch programs, despite meeting income requirements.
  • Traci Woodard argues that they are being shortchanged.

Traci Woodard is a mom of six and an education freedom advocate living in central Ohio. She’s the Parent Task Force director for Ohio Parents For Education Freedom.

Free or reduced school lunch has become a fundamental part of our schools. It ensures kids get the nutrition they need to succeed in school. It’s been a promise in Ohio for decades. 

Kinda. 

If you attend a public eschool, you’re out of luck.

You might meet the same income rules as the student getting on the bus down the street, be counted in the same census numbers that bring federal meal dollars to Ohio, and still be told, “No lunch for you.” 

This isn’t a small problem. Nationwide, more than 347,000 kids are in this gap. These aren’t private school kids or homeschoolers. They’re public-school students whose only “offense” is that their classroom is online instead of in a government school building. 

Why so many kids in eschools

Families choose to go online for many reasons.

  • Some parents want to have more oversight on what their children are being taught.
  • Other kids left traditional government public schools because they were being bullied with no help from the school to put an end to it.
  • And some families live in a rural area with very few options.

Whatever the reason, these students are in public schools, with public school teachers, public school curriculum and stringent accountability.  

Online students do not have to go hungry

So why do we leave them out when it comes to meals? Some folks say it’s because there’s simply no way to get meals to kids outside of the public-school building. But that’s not true. We already know how to do it because Ohio has already done it. 

During COVID, the USDA allowed meals to be picked up for these families who qualified yet weren’t in the brick-and-mortar building due to school closures. Schools made it work, and kids got fed. Ohio also has a statewide system for EBT cards and a network of stores that accept them. There are lots of easy options to make this work. 

But when the emergency ended, that flexibility vanished. Now, USDA says it needs Congress to act.  

Others argue that it’s too costly for taxpayers. It’s always fair to be concerned about spending.  

But here’s the thing: Ohio gets federal school lunch funds based on counts that include these students. The money is there.

It’s just not reaching them.  

Ohio kids are being tried like second-class students

That means the state is essentially shortchanging kids whose families may already be stretching every grocery dollar.

Hunger makes it hard to learn whether you’re in a classroom or at a kitchen table in rural Ohio. And for some students, the lack of school meal support is one more reason they feel like second-class citizens in the education system. 

Education isn’t one-size-fits-all anymore, and neither should our school meal rules be. The requirement that free or reduced lunch must be eaten in a physical cafeteria is outdated. Feeding kids isn’t partisan. It’s common sense.  

Congress should fix this, or USDA should use every tool it has to let Ohio feed all eligible public-school students.

The only thing worse than a hungry child is a hungry child that we have the ability to feed but choose not to. 

Traci Woodard is a mom of six and an education freedom advocate living in central Ohio. She’s the Parent Task Force Director for Ohio Parents For Education Freedom.

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