Lee's Summit School District advocates for free lunches for all students

Families in the Lee's Summit School District will have a burden lifted off their shoulders this school year.

"We give all students meals no matter what their status is," said Lori Danella, director of Nutrition Services at the Lee's Summit School District.

KSHB 41 News staff

A new school policy is ensuring all students have a meal to promote success in the classroom.

"Research show when students have their meals, they’re attending school, test scores are up." Danella said. "It’s also been proven it leads to less trips to the nurse’s office."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts across the nation were able to feed each students district-wide for free.

Funding for the program was rolled back in recent years, and Lee's Summit School District adopted the program into its own policies.

As inflation hits the wallets of families in the Kansas City area, it too is hitting the budgets of the Lee's Summit School District.

"We ended last year with about $79,000 in negative balances for families that could not pay for their meals," Danella said.

Danella hopes state and federal lawmakers will see the need to increase meal reimbursements by 40 cents for school lunches and 15 cents for breakfast.

"We would like to go back to that universal feeding.” Danella said. "I think we need to let our legislators know how much our families are struggling and how much universal meals could help."

For a list of resources on Free and Reduced Lunches in the Lee's Summit School District, click here.

Additional resources provided by the Lee's Summit School District are provided here .

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KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. Share your story idea with Ryan .