USDA visits Tulsa Public Schools in recognition of the district's meal program expansion

TULSA, Okla. — Representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, the Southwest Regional Officer of USDA and Hunger Free Oklahoma all visited Monroe Demonstration Academy to celebrate Tulsa Public Schools' expanded districtwide access to free breakfast and lunch.

Through the USDA's Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), beginning with the 2024-2025 school year, Tulsa Public Schools students in grades Pre-K through 12th will be eligible for free breakfast and lunch, giving free meal access to over 15,000 secondary students.

"We are so excited about the CEP Program. We're grateful for what this means for our students and families," said Tulsa Public Schools superintendent Ebony Johnson. "it's also something that our teachers and our staff members are excited about because it just means our students have one more barrier that we've removed so that they can show up and be amazing in their academic day."

Alongside staff from Tulsa Public Schools, Senior Policy Advisor at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Sakeenah Shabazz also celebrated the occasion.

"I think it's really important for the USDA to have a presence on the ground, especially where our programs are being operated," said Shabazz. "We wanted to take the opportunity to also see more of our programs in action, including the Community Eligibility Provision and lots of other things."

Despite the huge expansion in the number of students with access to the program, Shabazz was confident that the USDA and the CEP would be able to help schools and students, not just here in Oklahoma, but nationwide. "At the national level, we want more participation in our school meal programs. It was mentioned before that some of the meals served in school are the most healthful that a child might eat over the course of the week and especially during the course of the school day. For us, that buy in has always been there. We have the capacity to run it and the support of the leadership within our administration and across the department, so for us, it's not a hard sell to have more schools enrolled in CEP."

Superintendent Johnson estimated about 20,000 additional meals were being served thanks to the CEP.

Johnson said, "Our families do struggle at times. They are doing everything they can to hold down their households and so sometimes to then get a letter that says 'and you also owe $40, $100, on lunch bills' sometimes it becomes a lot. So I would say that I'm really excited that our operations team, our child nutrition department, and our Chief of Operations, has worked diligently alongside our Chief Financial Officer to really make sure that appropriate paperwork was sent in and appropriate conversations are happening. Our partnership with Hunger Free Oklahoma has pretty much solidified our ability to take that level of debt away from Tulsa Public Schools, which is great."

Shabazz also encouraged people to look more into the other programs provided by the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service. "We run 16 federal nutrition programs at the Food and Nutrition Service, including SNAP, WIC, school meals, and so many others. We really have our work cut out for us and school meals are just one part of that, a really big important part of that. I would just implore folks to learn more about the USDA. We do the farming work, but we also do so much food and nutrition to support kids. There's a lot for us to do and we're the people's department, so we're here to serve everybody that we can."