KURT MARTHALLER, who oversees school food programs in Butte, Montana, faces many cafeteria-related challenges: children skipping the lunch line because they fear being judged, parents fuming about surprise bills they can’t afford, unpaid meal debts of $70,000 districtwide.
But at nearly half of Marthaller’s schools, these concerns have vanished. At those schools, all students get free breakfast and lunch, regardless of their family’s income. At one school, West Elementary, children grab milk cartons, cereal bars and bananas from folding tables on their way to class, with almost 80% of students eating breakfast there each school day.
“We’ve done a lot of good things to feed kids here in Butte,” Marthaller said. But introducing universal free meals, he added, was “probably the best thing we ever did.”
Child nutrition advocates have pushed for free school meals for every student for a long time, but saw significant progress in the last decade and a half. Their first big win came quietly, in 2010, when Congress passed an under-the-radar policy called the community
