Published: August 18, 2008 04:50 pm      

Eligibility for free school lunches up

Oklahoma City — (AP) — Statistics show that the number of Oklahoma students who are eligible to receive free or reduced-cost school meals is rising.

According to the state Department of Education, about 640,000 students in Oklahoma are eligible for the program, or about 55.5 percent. In the Tulsa school district, the state’s largest, 82.6 percent of students are eligible, based on their parents’ income.

Those numbers have caught the attention of state Superintendent Sandy Garrett.

“Serving two meals a day makes us the largest restaurant in Oklahoma,” Garrett said.

Anne Roberts, the executive director of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, said that it’s often difficult for schools to serve the needs of students who qualify for the program.

She said such students often must deal not only with nutritional issues, but with stress at home and gaps in vocabulary and life experiences.

“The free and reduced numbers are the canary in the minefield for me, because they are an indication of poverty, and poverty does bad things to children,” Roberts said.

“We happen to be a state that benefits from high oil prices, but at the same time high oil prices are driving some of the poverty that is going on,” she said.

Garrett said that in some cases, state agencies, local educators and community civic and faith-based organizations are working to help students who come from poverty-stricken families.

The Camp Fire USA Green Country Council in Tulsa provides services including after-school programming to more than 25 schools.

“When you look at what’s going on with families who have plenty of resources, you see they are in quality after-school programming, get homework help, take dance lessons, that sort of thing,” said Bobbie Henderson, the organization’s executive director.

“We try to make up that difference because those are opportunities that help children advance in their academic pursuits.”