If Kansas lawmakers don’t meet the state Supreme Court’s June 30 deadline to fix school funding, what will happen to summer programs that the school districts run?
Kansas City, Kansas, School District officials believe their summer meals program would likely be cut short.
Tammy Dodderidge said the district serves about 80,000 meals over the course of a summer at dozens of sites. The program is open to anyone in the community under 18 years old.
“It matters,” said Crystal Jones, who has two children in the district. Her son and daughter ate a free breakfast and lunch from the district Wednesday. “Some people depend on it.”
The summer meals program is actually funded by the USDA but Dodderidge said that doesn’t matter.
“If schools were to shut down, that program goes through us and it would no longer be able to exist because we manage the program.”
The Shawnee Mission School District started its summer lunch program June 1. District officials said it was unknown if missing the June 30 deadline means their program would have to stop. Olathe School District officials said their program would not be impacted because it ends before the deadline.
Officials from the Child Nutrition and Wellness team of the Kansas State Department of Education said they are working on a plan b for whatever happens to continue serving children free meals this summer. They said it is too early to tell what missing the deadline would mean.
Dodderidge said that public libraries in Kansas City, Kansas are also run through the school district so they may have to close as well. It will at least, she said, be a part of the legal questions that need clarified if the June 30 deadline passes with no school funding plan approved.
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Lindsay Shively can be reached at lindsay.shively@kshb.com.
