A few summers ago, I was at a conference for teachers, learning how to implement individual learning strategies into my math classroom. I was working alongside teachers from across the state, an illuminating experience.

One woman, a math teacher at a high school in the Central District, commented that it must be nice to teach in Kailua where, she assumed, all of my students’ parents were doctors and lawyers. “I think you’re thinking of Punahou,” I responded, only half-jokingly. 

I grew up in Kailua, and am familiar with the stereotypes of my hometown. And yes, it is certainly true that there are a lot of wealthy families here – many of whom do send their kids to Punahou (and other private schools). 

But it was a genuine shock to that teacher when I told her that, as a special education teacher, most of my students lived below the poverty line, and a small but not negligible percentage of them – somewhere around 5% at the time – lacked permanent shelter. They slept in their parents’ cars, in tents on the beach, or crashed at a different family member’s place every few months. 

“Even in Kailua?” she asked. Yes, even in Kailua. I imagine something similar can be said for just about any community across the islands. 

Suffice to say, a lot of students genuinely rely on food provided by their schools, and not only those who are in the most dire circumstances. Which is why the recent proposal to raise the cost of school meals for students – actually their parents and guardians – from $2.50 to $4.75 by the 2028-29 academic year is facing so much pushback. 

The Board of Education has voted against the proposal, and Gov. Josh Green has stated that he wants to find a way to make school meals free for all students. That’s a worthy goal, and one worth working toward.

A Two-Pronged Challenge

How we achieve universal free meals is a big question, even if it’s a relatively simple one, in the sense that the solution is essentially a matter of financial reshuffling. More money needs to be diverted to meal programs, whether that’s a function of injecting more money into the DOE budget, rearranging the priorities of the existing budget, or a little bit of both.

It’s not so simple, however, in that public schools can’t – and shouldn’t – simply serve any kind of food. We already missed the mark on the farm-to-school initiative, which aimed to buy at least 10% of ingredients from local farmers during the 2023-2024 school year. Our schools got halfway there, which isn’t bad considering only one person was hired to implement the plan for the entire public school system, and was only hired six months ago. 

But even good excuses are still ultimately excuses. Public school lunches often go to waste; many of my former students, even the ones who didn’t have regular access to food at home, opted instead for a diet of Takis and energy drinks from the nearby 7-11 instead of the free food offered at school. 

The way we think about education in this country does not match the responsibilities we put onto schools.

Having fresher ingredients is one of the benefits of the farm-to-school plan, and a look at the Kamehameha Schools cafeteria Instagram page will show you the potential of a good meal plan, even if it’s not reasonable to expect that level of quality at every single public school.

“The food is bad and we need more of it” is a tough situation to be in, but it’s reality. We simultaneously need to have more and better food available.

Some models of free lunch programs offer a spectrum of prices for school meals depending on the family’s income, where some kids pay full price and some don’t pay anything at all. What most of the data on universal free lunches shows, however, is that when it’s free for everyone, more kids overall eat school lunches, which destigmatizes the behavior. When school lunches are known as meals for poor kids, students are given a very good reason to eat something else. 

The “how” of this issue is a legitimate hurdle, but the discussion about the “why” still tends to miss the point.

Food For Its Own Sake

BOE Chair Roy Takumi echoed a common, and obviously reasonable, talking point when he said that “Kids who are hungry obviously can’t learn.” It’s an intuitive idea; anyone who has ever had to concentrate on a challenging task while their stomach groaned and gurgled understands. 

While some studies have shown positive correlations between universal free lunch and academic performance, other studies show little to no effect. And that’s totally fine! The problem with kids going without food is not that their test scores aren’t high enough. The problem is that they’re kids, and they’re going without food.

We shouldn’t pursue social goods because of performance metrics; feeding hungry children should not depend upon their academic performance.

The way we think about education in this country does not match the responsibilities we put onto schools. We talk about schools as if they are solely halls of learning academic skills and knowledge, when in reality they are expected to be institutions that address all manner of social ills – poverty, trauma, malnutrition. Worse yet, schools are often blamed for those ills simply because they show up so clearly there.

This disparity between how we think about schools and what they are actually expected to be causes a severe form of brain rot that infects the discourse about all sorts of important issues, whether it’s early childhood education or providing healthy food for kids. It’s an indictment of our moral clarity if we require performance metrics to justify efforts to help kids and their families.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.