AFT-NH Testimony on HB 655
From Debrah Howes, President AFT-NH
Thank you, Chairman Ladd and Members of the House Education Funding Committee, for reading my testimony.
My name is Debrah Howes. I am president of the American Federation of Teachers -NH. AFT-NH represents 3,500 teachers, paraeducators and school support staff, public service employees and higher education staff across the Granite State. We work with close to 30,000 students in public schools across the state, all of them entitled to a robust public education, which is their constitutional right as Granite State citizens.
We support HB 655 because there are hungry kids in New Hampshire. As of Sept 2024, almost 40% of Granite State children live in households that don’t have enough food, at least some of the time.
And since we know these children are in New Hampshire, we know that many of them are in our public schools. I know because I have seen them. My members see them on any given day. My members often dig into their own pockets to keep a stash of easy snacks in their classrooms for those in need. Why do we do this? Because we know that hungry kids have a harder time paying attention to their schoolwork. Hungry kids often have more off tasks behaviors and disrupt learning for other students. Hungry kids sometimes act out. What they don’t do is learn as well as they could.
How could this be in New Hampshire where we already have a law that requires public schools to provide all students with access to a meal during the school day? It’s simple. Access is not the same as actually making sure the child is able to purchase the meal that is offered. Some families earn too much to qualify for free or reduced price school meals, yet their housing, medical and other expenses make it hard to consistently afford filling, nutritious meals for the whole family outside of school hours and pay for the cost of school meals for the student, or multiple students, as well.
So, these students may be coming to school hungry in the morning, if it is a time when the cupboards at home have run low on food. Most school districts will allow students to charge a certain number of meals, but once the unpaid meal debt reaches a certain level, the school district will follow its own policy about contacting the parent and trying to collect the debt owed. This can result in letters and phone calls and possible consequences for the unpaid debt. Some districts have even explored taking parents to court over uncollected school lunch debt. Financially stressed parents who are doing their best to keep a roof over their families heads don’t need the additional stress of being hounded for school lunch debt. This can result in avoiding the school meal altogether to avoid debt the family can’t afford. We have seen students who said they weren’t allowed to get a hot lunch, even when they were sent in with practically empty lunchboxes.
None of this helps the student get the nutrition he needs to focus on learning and socialize appropriately with friends at school. And the long term effects of food insecurity are serious to young, developing minds. According to the non-profit Feed the Children, children living with food insecurity have lower math and reading scores, higher rates of absenteeism and tardiness at school and are less likely to graduate from school. This bill HB 665 would go a long way to help alleviate that for many of those children who are now in that gap between the current free and reduced price lunch program and 300% of the poverty level.
For the sake of the children who are currently going hungry in our schools, we urge you to find HB655 Ought to Pass.
Thank you,
Debrah Howes
President, AFT-New Hampshire