Shutdown Day 32: School Districts Step Up to Help Students and Families
January 23, 2019
By: Denisa R. Superville
Source: Education Week
With federal workers feeling squeezed from not receiving a paycheck during the longest shutdown of the federal government in history, school districts are stepping up to help families make ends meet.
Across the country—from Tulsa, Okla., to Atlanta—districts are offering jobs to idled federal employees, raising money to help struggling families, and expanding school meal programs so students with furloughed parents can have free breakfast and lunch at school.
Districts are doing so amid concerns that the National School Lunch Program, which feeds more than 30 million students annually, could run out of money in March if the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, is not funded or if the shutdown does not end soon.