MEALS

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Dowling said during COVID-19 when the children weren’t in school, “DelCom” ran a similar program, offering free sack lunches Monday through Friday to help families out, for any child under the age of 18, no matter where they went to school.

Though meals aren’t automatically free for all students in the seven Delaware County public school corporations other than MCS, Christiana Mann, assistant lecturer of hospitality innovation and leadership at Ball State University, said at the start of every school year, all schools in Delaware County send out papers asking parents to fill out financial information to see if their family qualifies for free or discounted meals and/or textbooks.

According to PublicSchoolReview.com, approximately 42 percent of students in Indiana qualify for free meals. Mann used to hold an administrative role at MCS where she was volunteer coordinator at East Washington Academy and program coordinator at South View Elementary. In her time there, she felt the biggest issue with this system was that not many families replied to these forms being sent out, meaning there was nothing the school corporation could do.

“I think with any social issue with a population, it’s frustrating and disheartening, and it’s sad,” Mann said. “Because ultimately, it’s the child who suffers.”

Regardless of forms, Mann said she believes with the current economic state around the country, as well as meal and textbook fees, it’s hard on families to put children through school. With that, she feels continuing to provide free meals in all school corporations would be a massive help to more than just the families.

“This is hitting everybody, even those people who don’t qualify [for free meals] with food security and having consistent and nutritious means to have food,” Mann said. “It was much easier to just be able to provide that to everyone … And I gotta believe the logistics of it for the cafeteria workers and the company managing it was much easier as well.”

According to the Indiana Department of Education, more than 40 public school corporations in Indiana offer completely free meals to all students. As a contrast, if the Dowlings are paying $27 per week and the Browns are paying $26 per week in DelCom Schools, just for lunch, this means on average, these families may be paying $179 per week to feed their families when factoring in the average $152 grocery bill, though Dowling said her family’s is normally around $300.

Dowling said she doesn’t feel much has changed since COVID-19 as far as the monetary side of things, and she is confident free meals for all students in all school corporations would benefit any family, regardless of income.

“I think free lunch and free breakfast should be [offered] forever,” Dowling said. “... I think with grocery prices being so high right now, and there’s still a lot of people who seem to be out of work or are making the same pay they were making before COVID[-19], I do think it would be really helpful.”

Contact Kyle Smedley with comments via email at kyle.smedley@bsu.edu or on Twitter @ KyleSmedley_.

Williams said perceptions can be a reality, but it depends on who has the lens.

“As long as [students] know that they are loved, then I think we’ve done our job,” Williams said. “It’s okay to make mistakes. You know, as long as we learn from those mistakes, and as long as we don’t repeat or duplicate those mistakes, then that’s just a part of life.”

Through their experiences of teaching, Maupin and Eads learned important lessons from their students. Eads said the students have taught her how to overcome really tough things and know not to do it on her own. In between tears and complaints about bad-quality tissues, the teachers said the kids have taught them about love.

“There is nothing like being frustrated or having a hard day and having literally almost all of your kids come up to you and surround you in love and hugs and words of affirmation,” Eads said. “They are such amazing little friends. You can have a moment when maybe you aren’t the nicest … and they still say, ‘Teacher, I love you.’”

“It sounds like some cheesy, education movie, but I’m serious. I have never been so loved in my entire life,” she said. “I can lose my temper and feel really frustrated with the kids, but I know that they are so forgiving and understanding … The lessons that life, I thought, had taught me, I didn’t learn anything until I came to South View.”

Contact Lila Fierek with comments at