Waching daily Aug 3 2017

In Texas, the number of students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch during the school year

has gone up — but the number of students who take advantage of free summer meals has

gone down; and no one knows why.

In 2011, the state passed a law requiring school districts

to provide free meals for students if

the school districts had 50 percent or more students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch

during the school year. The school districts have to offer the meals for at least 30 days.

Many end up doing it during their summer school programs.

So a national study has Texas falling from 39th to 48th in a national ranking of states

that are feeding their hungry kids during the summer.

No one knows exactly why they rates of participation in the summer meals program in Texas are dropping.

But school districts and experts have some theories.

One theory is that the school districts are having to cut their programs that they

offer to students during the summer because of tight budgets.

Which meant fewer students showed up for the summer meals. Another potential explanation

for the drop in participation is transportation.

For both urban and rural districts, transportation can be an issue with school districts not

knowing how to get kids to the summer meals or how to get the summer meals to the kids.

In urban areas, often there are mazes of highways that prevent kids from being able to walk

over on their own.

In rural areas, the problem is that the campuses are too far from where kids live.

And they can't get their public transportation, so they're unable to take take

advantage of the summer meals.

School districts are working on creative ways to increase participation and get kids to

their summer meals.

Dallas ISD is thinking about creating a mobile meals program, outfitting a bus or van

with AC and driving it to the park so kids can sit in the van and eat the meals.

Houston ISD spent $20,000 this summer advertising its program by putting decals on 24 delivery

trucks that drove around the city and putting up posters in all the schools.

The state said they're not actually investigating why the numbers dropped in 2016. And it remains

to be seen whether efforts at individual school districts will reverse the trend.