All New York City Public School Students Get Free Lunch

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture, CC BY 2.0.

It’s Friday, so let’s celebrate with some good news: as of yesterday, all New York City public school students get free lunch.

From The New York Times:

Lunch at New York City public schools will be available free of charge to all 1.1 million students beginning this school year, Carmen Fariña, the schools chancellor, said on Wednesday in the basement cafeteria of a Hell’s Kitchen elementary school. The new school year begins on Thursday.

“This is about equity,” Ms. Fariña said. “All communities matter.”

Roughly 75 percent of NYC public school students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and now 100 percent of them get free lunch. That’s some math I can get behind.

NYC is currently getting all of the free-lunch headlines, probably because this decision has been years in the making, but it isn’t the only city offering free lunch to everyone this year. Houston is, too—and it’s also offering free breakfast.

From U.S. News:

The Houston Independent School District, a public school system that serves around 215,000 students, said this week it had received approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Agriculture to waive an application process needed to obtain free breakfast and lunch in the wake of the storm. The school district said the move meant all its students “will eat all school meals for free during the 2017-2018 school year.”

Also, as long-term Billfolders might remember, the Dallas Independent School District has been offering free lunches to all students since 2013.

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