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Louisiana lawmaker renews push for free breakfast in schools
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BATON ROUGE - The fight against childhood hunger comes with a high price. One Louisiana lawmaker wants all public schools to serve free breakfast, but some worry about the cost.
Statewide, about one in five kids live in a household where they don't know where their next meal will come from. State Rep. Kyle Green, D-Marrero, wants to step in to provide the most important meal of the day.
East Baton Rouge schools already provide free meals for students under the Child Nutrition Program, a federal initiative that reimburses schools for providing meals to students. However, not all 64 parishes in Louisiana are part of the same program.
"This is a comprehensive approach to ensure that all children, at a minimum, get free breakfast," Green said. "We need to ensure that at a bare minimum [children] get a decent breakfast."
This is the second time since 2024 that Green has pushed for free breakfast to be provided for all 680,000 public school students. The last time, it died in committee. Green said that for his own children, the cost of lunch through their school is about $3.75, and he notes that breakfast is less than that.
The cost of providing meals could range from ten to twelve million dollars annually, and Green says the money would come from the state department of education, but Gov. Jeff Landry's team has proposed a standstill budget, making it unclear at this time if free breakfast is a priority.
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