From free meals to teacher safety, an array of bills for Hawaiʻi schools

Universal access to free school meals has been a top priority for families and teachers in recent years, with more than 15 proposals introduced over the past three sessions. But it was only last spring that advocates secured a major win: a law that requires the DOE to provide free school meals to students whose families make up to 300% of the federal poverty level by next school year. 

Now, students and educators are pushing the state to take the next step by committing to providing all students with free breakfast and lunch by the end of the decade. As of last fall, nine states offer free school meals to all students.

“We cannot expect our kids to have excellent academic outcomes if we’re not even meeting their basic needs,” said Rep. Trish La Chica, who introduced the bill for free school meals. The measure passed through the House and is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Education Committee. 

Daniela Spoto, deputy director of Hawaiʻi Appleseed, said she’s hopeful the extended timeline to establish a free meal program will make the proposal more feasible for lawmakers and the education department. The bill won’t have any immediate impact on the state’s budget, since the program won’t start until the 2029-30 academic year. 

But despite strong public support for the bill, Spoto said she’s worried that the different price estimates for the program could make it harder to pass. Appleseed and the Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute have both estimated the initiative could cost $32.5 million, since the state would need to make up the revenue it currently earns through the sale of student meals and account for a possible increase in the number of kids participating in the breakfast and lunch program.

The department currently receives almost $80 million in state funds for its meal program, although it’s requested an additional $1.5 million this year to cover increased costs from inflation and purchasing more local food. 

But DOE estimates it would cost roughly $111 million to run a universal free meal program. The costs may run even higher if fewer students submit their meal benefit applications, which determine how much funding Hawaiʻi receives from the federal government for school meals, Superintendent Keith Hayashi said in his testimony to the Legislature. 

Spoto said it’s unclear how the department arrived at its number, although it may include the costs the state is already incurring for its school meal program. But the drastically different estimates could confuse lawmakers on the true costs of the program, making it harder for the proposal to pass, she said. 

“I think that they are just confusing legislators with their conflation of the cost of the bill versus the cost of the program,” Spoto said. “I think that it’s misleading, and it’s been causing a lot of confusion and a lot of frustration.”