According to a new study, White Settlement Independent School District ranked the highest in North Texas in providing disadvantaged students nutritious meals and snacks throughout the school day.
The 2022 Kroger School Food Rankings found that the Fort Worth school district ranks No.18 among all Texan school districts and first in North Texas, with close to 100% of eligible students participating in complimentary lunch and 40% participating in complimentary breakfast programs.
“In North Texas, White Settlement ISD in Fort Worth ranked first because they served the most meals to eligible students in the region, doing particularly well [at] serving lunches and suppers,” said Sharon Watkins Jones, the chief equity officer with the nonprofit Children at Risk.
The ranking was conducted in partnership with Children at Risk and Paso del Norte Health Foundation.
“For many kids, we know that school meals are their only meals of the day,” said Valerie Stone Hawthorne, the director of government relations with the North Texas Food Bank. “They show up to school hungry and they leave feeling fulfilled, and sometimes they don’t even get the next meal until the next day when school comes.”
Irving and Mesquite ISDs landed in second and third place for North Texas at No.21 and No.26 in the state, respectively. More than 70% of eligible students participate in their breakfast programs.
“All three were pretty solid at reaching kids for lunch, which we’re really happy about, but there was some variation in terms of how consistently they were meeting their needs for breakfast and other programs,” said Sara Moran, the associate director with the Center for Social Measurement and Evaluation for Children at Risk.
According to Children at Risk data, there are some 1.5 million “food-insecure” children statewide, and nearly 3.7 million low-income students in Texas qualify for free or reduced-price school meals through federal programs.
“Meals allocated to schools through summer programs that were utilized during the school year were included in the breakfast and lunch sections of the school food insecurity index score,” Brown said. “This score captures districts’ participation and distribution of meals in breakfast, lunch, supper, and after school snack, all provided by schools.”
The school food insecurity index score measures the share of eligible students who received meals through the School Nutrition Program and the Child Adult Care Food Program.
“We look at all of these and weight them based on what the research says is the most impactful,” Moran told The Dallas Express. “Research says breakfast has the biggest impact on how kids focus when they are getting meals at school, so it’s weighted heavier when more students receive breakfast, [followed by] lunch, and then snack and supper.”
The school food insecurity index scores for White Settlement ISD, Irving ISD, and Mesquite ISD were 61, 49, and 37, respectively.
“One of the things we have found is that including feedback from our stakeholders and being proactive and nimble in our practices has allowed us to provide meals to our students in almost a seamless fashion,” said Olga Rosenberger, Irving ISD’s executive director of Federal Programs and Community Engagement. “Our amazing team plans and pivots so that our student’s only concern is their academics and doing well in school. They won’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.”
McAllen ISD is the top-ranking school district in Texas overall, with a score of over 100, while San Antonio ISD is the top-ranking large school district statewide, with a score of 78, according to the study.
“Both McAllen and San Antonio went above and beyond to provide meals to students at bus stops if they were not able to get to a specific campus to pick up meals,” Moran said. “San Antonio ISD made sure students were getting meals over the holidays. So, going above and beyond to meet kids where they are is one best practice we saw school districts engage in.”
To catch up with McAllen ISD and San Antonio ISD next year, White Settlement ISD, Irving ISD, and Mesquite ISD would need to take advantage of Seamless Summer Option and Summer Food Service Program meals during the school year, according to Moran.
“We were seeing that some districts were utilizing those meals and funding better than others, so if they can figure out a way to use those kinds of flexible options when they become available at a higher rate like some of the other districts did, that would be a great step,” she said.
School districts that ranked highly in the 2022 study had to overcome pandemic-related challenges to continue providing complimentary nutrition to students.
“Child nutrition has faced some of the most challenging times these last two years. As with most districts nationwide, we’ve been dealing with supply chain issues, shortages of food, shortages of paper, and shortages of staff as well,” Rosenberger told The Dallas Express. “We have had to meet weekly, even daily sometimes, or even sometimes several times a day to brainstorm on menu substitutions and plans of action.”
Kathy Huey, the child nutrition director at White Settlement ISD, said the district showed appreciation to their employees for helping students survive the pandemic.
“We have struggled, like other school districts, concerning substitutions,” she said. “Labor shortages have really doubled the amount of work they do in a day. For us, it’s just recognizing our employees. Our superintendent goes and visits them, acknowledges them, and lets them know that they are key to the district’s success because our kids are getting a well nutritious meal and, of course, a variety, and that takes a lot of work from the kitchen.”
One in five children is hungry statewide, said Stephen Raeside, the executive vice president of development at the Tarrant Area Food Bank, where children receive about 40% of the food distributed.
“We serve thirteen counties on the Western side of North Texas with Fort Worth as the nucleus of that area, and children are at the very core of what we do at the food bank,” he said. “It’s not just distributing calories to them, it’s good nutrition so they can grow, thrive, and do well on that algebra test come Monday morning,” said Raeside.