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Carolyn Pluim

Mention the words “school lunch,” and most people automatically picture “lunch ladies” in white uniforms and hairnets who dish up pizza, tacos and hamburgers.

But the actual business of school lunch programs is a political hot potato and the topic of much research, including the work of Carolyn Pluim, chair of the NIU College of Education’s Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations.

Pluim views school lunch as a moral imperative that promotes the health, wellness and safety of children.

“In the end, we strive to be ethical people who provide food for our children to ensure that we have a healthy population of students coming to school. It’s a fundamental right of children to be provided access to the nutrients they require,” she said.

“Children are at school for six hours a day, and they can’t be hungry for six hours a day. Food should not be something to penalize children with,” she added. “Food should be something that we celebrate, that we enjoy and that’s communal—something we participate in with our friends and family—and lack of access to food shouldn’t be something connected with shame.”

Her widely published work, however, has shown “a disconnect between those who are actually providing the school lunches and those who are advocating for continued funding for school lunches and school food programs.”

“Continuing to provide free and reduced-price school meals remains a critical piece of what we can offer students in terms of leveling out food inequity and ensuring that all students have at least one meal, if not two, with lunch and breakfast, which I believe should be the bare minimum,” Pluim said, “and so I think that the research that I do, or have done, ensures that funding continues and does make a difference in students’ lives in terms of their overall well-being and academic performance.”

Not everyone agrees, she knows, and that group often includes politicians, the representatives who lobby on behalf of food items, and individuals who make financial decisions for schools.

Food programs “are easy to cut, and we’ve seen that happen,” said Pluim, co-author of a chapter entitled “Schooling Lunch: Health, Food, and the Pedagogicalization of the Lunch Box,” from the 2018 book, “Educational Dimensions of School Lunch: Critical Perspectives.”

“There are many examples, historically, of kids who couldn’t afford school lunches and got put on cafeteria duty.

That’s very problematic because it singles out those kids who can’t afford to bring a lunch,” she said.

“Highlighting these kinds of embarrassing, singling-out experiences has, I think, helped us to shape policy. ‘How do we not single out children? How do we not shame children for their socioeconomic placement in the world?’ This can become a bit shameful when you don’t have a lunch, you’re hungry and you have to say, ‘I’m on the free-and-reduced program.’”

Economic disparity compounds the issue.

School districts that depend on subsidized food programs for many or all of their students “don’t necessarily have the same support of districts that have maybe 1% of their children who rely on the school for food,” Pluim said, “and so there needs to be an understanding that, even though one might not necessarily benefit from the program, this is something worth investing in.”

NIU champions that goal.

Faculty in Pluim’s department prepare superintendents—1 of every 5 Illinois superintendents holds an NIU degree— along with principals and district business managers. Those aspiring administrators learn about school breakfast and lunch programs as part of their coursework.

Guest speakers from the field are brought in to discuss district or building budgets, including where food service funding comes from and how those funds are spent, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s child nutrition program guidelines.

Lynn Gibson

Discussions also cover the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast Program and the Summer Food Service Program.

“Our goal is to have aspiring administrators understand the importance of child nutrition programs,” said Lynn Gibson, clinical assistant professor of Educational Administration and retired superintendent of Hononegah Community High School District 207, “as well as the personnel needed for these programs to operate at a high level for our students.”

Pluim appreciates that.

She continues to worry about the politics of school food programs and has researched bans on food provided by schools that play into personal notions of “good food, bad food.”

“The school meal program is a billion-dollar industry, and we see all these corporate advocates, such as the Dairy Board, saying, ‘This milk is OK; that milk is not OK.’ Everybody wants their piece of the pie,” Pluim said. “We still need to be careful about the political maneuvers that create ‘What makes the school lunch a good school lunch?’ because that’s not always what actually makes a good school lunch.”

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