- Waukesha was the only school district in Wisconsin to opt out of Biden's free lunch program.
- This week, it opted back in, with board members saying they were unaware of the hunger in their district.
- But it was a 5-4 vote, and some members likened free lunch to mask mandates.
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Waukesha, a Wisconsin school district, voted in June to opt out of President Joe Biden's free school lunch program under the argument that children and families could become "spoiled" with free meals. But nearly two months later, and after widespread criticism, the district opted back into the program and admitted they didn't know how many children go hungry.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Monday that by a 5-4 vote, the Waukesha school board rescinded its previous decision and chose to opt back into the pandemic free lunch program, which gives free meals to all K-12 students, regardless of income. Superintendent James Sebert asked the board members to reconsider their decision, and after weighing the feedback the board had received, Board President Joseph Como said he hadn't been aware of all the situations of hunger in the district.
"I appreciate your input very much," Como said. "I eat every meal every day. I cannot relate to being hungry. I've been blessed."
Another board member, Greg Deets, added that he first voted to opt out of the free school lunch program because he didn't know the full extent to which students in the district go unfed.
"I made the earlier votes without really looking at all the implications and I wasn't really informed and I apologize for that," Deets said. "The truth is that many of our students are hungry throughout the school day and we have the ability to do something about that."
But, as the Journal reported, other board members didn't feel the same way. Karin Rajnicek, the school board member who made headlines for saying free school meals could make students and families "become spoiled," defended her comments at the board meeting and said she was speaking from her own experience with feeling spoiled by free meals for her children.
And other board members said the change of course to opt into school meals was just giving into intimidation.
"If it's food and free lunch today, it will be forced masking, forced whatever-we-want-to-do in schools because the mob will have the power to tell us what to do," board member Anthony Zenobia said.
Before reversing course, Waukesha was the only school district in Wisconsin to opt out of the pandemic free lunch program, which extends through spring of 2022, and instead chose to remain in the the National School Lunch Program, which requires families to fill out an application to qualify for free or reduced-price school meals.
"It's the student that's in the lunch line... that stands there when there isn't money to pay the bill. It's the student that has to go back and sit at the table," Deets said. "I think we should do whatever we can so that students in our district don't have to experience those situations."