IGNACIO – Before COVID-19, the Ignacio School District covered about two-thirds free and reduced-price student lunches, but didn’t have the financial means to ensure every single student could eat breakfast and lunch at school.
Now that the district has been receiving help from the state’s Healthy School Meals for All program, the school district is able to feed every student without the concern of some logistical barriers it had experienced beforehand.
Before 2020, qualifications for Ignacio School District’s free and reduced-price meals included household income and the number of people in households. That largely impacted single parents with one or two children, the district’s meal program coordinator Kim Cotta said.
“My heart would hurt when I would have a single mother that had a relatively good income, but she only had one child, so, that would kick her out of the eligibility because there’s just two people in the family,” she said.
Since joining the state’s meal program in fall 2023, the number of daily full-pay student meals the district is providing has increased 20%, or an extra 180 daily meals. Ignacio School District is now serving about 900 student meals a day, and it no longer has to incur those costs.
“When you’re trying to learn on an empty stomach, that can be difficult,” said Superintendent Chris deKay. “If your nutritional needs are met, then you’re able to focus.”
Cotta said serving those extra student meals also helps offset increasing food costs for families.
Cotta and deKay said the increased number of meals served may have contributed to the district’s improved state test scores.
The district as a whole moved into the accredited status after jumping from a score of 46.9% in 2022-23 school year to 59.3% during the 2023-24 school year. Ignacio Elementary School saw the largest jump, from 37.1% in 2022-23 to 62% in 2023-24.
“A hungry mind cannot learn. A hungry body cannot learn,” Cotta said. “I was absolutely one of those kids when I was in high school. I remember that the period before lunch, I was watching the clock because I hadn’t had breakfast. That was before there was a breakfast program. I think about that all the time. ... Instead of paying attention to instruction, I was watching the clock. So, I’m sure there’s many kids that do that.”
One in eight schoolchildren across America is considered food insecure, and hunger can lead to not only lower math and reading skills, but can also lead to stunted social development and increased absenteeism, according to the organization Feed the Children.
Since fall 2023, Ignacio School District saw a 31% increase in revenue. And the state assistance has allowed the school district a bit more flexibility with its general funding for areas like its food service account. The district is now able to conserve more money for other areas like books, curriculum and facilities, deKay said.
“We just reappropriate that money that was going into the federal lunch program through a transfer, and then that just goes into those other buckets,” he said.
Cotta said families have previously felt some kind of stigma by asking for help with student meals and filling out applications. Although the process was confidential, she believes it was likely a matter of parents’ personal pride when it came to their financial situation. That led to her having many conversations with families.
“Those are the times that I would learn that it just wasn’t in their makeup to fill out a free and (reduced-price) meal application and be a part of the program,” Cotta said.
Now those families no longer have to worry about such stigmas because of the extra state assistance, she said.
“It’s a dream come true and I hope it stays, because I’d like to end my career without the struggles I’ve had in the past,” she said.
Before the meal program expanded, Cindy Valdez, a physical education teacher at Ignacio Elementary School, said that a handful of students came to class hungry, so she had to bring granola bars or a bag of apples with her to class to ensure they could eat something.
Of the roughly 280 students in Valdez’s 10 physical education classes during school days, about five or six of them struggled with hunger.
“If you’re hungry, that’s all you’re going to think about,” she said. “You’re not going to think about math or writing or P.E. … You’re not going to want to listen because you’re focused on your stomach growling.”
Allison deKay, a science teacher at Ignacio Elementary School, teaches 80 to 100 students in her five classes per school day. About 10 of them struggled with hunger before the program expanded, telling her, “I haven’t had breakfast.”
“Their basic need isn’t met, so they can’t learn. The basic need has to be met first,” she said. “They definitely, I would say, lacked the ability to focus on learning because they had to do those basic things first.”
And now her students no longer ask for snacks. She also sees a possible connection between the extra meals and the district’s improved state test results because more students are being fed.
“Your brain runs on glucose. … A lot of times, dinner is absent, so they’re really relying on that breakfast and lunch,” she said.
Valdez said that if children are not fueled sufficiently in the morning, they don’t have the energy for physical education. Now that those students are able to eat breakfast, she also said their concentration and their moods have improved.
“They will play to their full potential, they exert energy to their full potential,” she said.
Now with the changes that took effect last year, Cotta said she can spend more time preparing scratch-cooked meals, adding that helps the program from both nutritional and financial standpoints.
Valdez said the expanded program has also helped assure parents with multiple children that their little ones will have something to eat, even if parents may be late for work and may not have time to prepare breakfast at home.
“When parents know in the back of their mind, ‘It’s OK because once they get to school, they going to have breakfast,’ that has to ease some of the tension for parents,” she said.
In order to prolong the funding, Cotta said she must stay on top of regular reports that go through a state review and must be submitted to the federal government.
Those reports must show that reimbursable meals have five nutritional components, including proper portions, and adequate calorie counts and sodium levels, she said.
mhollinshead@durangoherald.com