Free school meals are popular. Hawaiʻi isn’t sold.
Three years after lawmakers first considered making school meals free for all kids, students and teachers are still pushing for change.
From free meals to teacher safety, an array of bills for Hawaiʻi schools
Proposals have made it halfway through the legislative session, and some advocates are cautiously optimistic that legislation that failed in past years will make it this year.
Push to feed Hawaiʻi kids more local food is ‘structural disaster’
The DOE has not taken the effort seriously and has no real plan for how to meet a legislative mandate to spend 30 percent of its food budget locally by 2030, according to a state audit.
Free student meals back on the table at the Legislature
On Wednesday the House Committee on Finance moved along House Bill 1779, which would give all students free breakfast and lunch at school starting with the 2029–2030 school year.
The price of hunger: Navigating the cost burden of free meals for Hawaiʻi students
Hawaiʻi Appleseed’s “Equity on the Menu” shows a cost estimate of $26 million per year. This would be 1.2 percent of the Hawaiʻi DOE’s overall annual budget, set this year at just over $2 billion.
Hawaiʻi families could face big price hike for school meals
Charging elementary and middle school students $4.75 for lunch would be a huge hit to working families, advocates say.
Hawaiʻi County Council could join call for free school meals statewide
A resolution introduced by the council said that Hawaiʻi Island has the highest rate of food insecurity in the state, but the issue is statewide.
Suit puts 88 more homeless students in school
U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor ordered the Education Department to revise enrollment forms and computer registration programs to better identify, track and service homeless students as part of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987.
Homeless students can ride buses
The state will assist families to ensure they attend school.
Buses required for homeless students
The settlement requires the state to improve transportation to and from public schools for students living in shelters, cars or on beaches, as well as to improve programs to locate and identify children in need of such services.
DOE gets deadline to track homeless
The Feb. 19 order comes about a week after a judge sided with three homeless families who sued the state for allegedly failing to provide them an adequate education under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987.
Children left behind
Homeless families sue the DOE for failing to educate their children in accordance with federal law.
Hawaiʻi violates equal-access law, ACLU says
The state violates a federal law that mandates equal access to education for homeless students by making them switch schools when they move and not letting them enroll in new schools without documentation, according to lawyers suing the school system.
Community Matters: Interview with William Durham of LEJ
Despite receiving federal monies, Hawaiʻi schools are turning homeless children away at the school house door, forcing them to change school multiple times in a single year, and denying them basic transportation services necessary to attend.
Suit alleges Hawaiʻi fails homeless kids
The state has failed so badly at helping homeless children get to and from public schools that federal courts should intervene in the situation, according to a class-action lawsuit