Pack lunch is Katie Armstrong’s morning ruin.
Then, the mother of New Scotland was “very excited” when he heard that the provincial government was launching a lunch program in the primary schools throughout the province, including the school that her son, Henry, attends.
The program is a payment model, and began to launch it to schools last fall. In order for food to be affordable and accessible to all, the program never placed expectations to families to pay meals.
Armstrong chose to pay the full price for his son’s lunch, hoping to compensate for the cost of the program for other children.
“I think the first time I did, I paid the six full dollars,” he said in an interview with CBC News.
Henry tried but did not enjoy some of the meals such as fish cakes and black beans. I was disappointed by the pizza, which described as “really humid” coverage toasted on bread.
“When I saw Henry’s response and others and that I was not really working for us, I reduced it to the amount of four dollars.”
Armstrong is not alone. Through surveys and the decrease in payment amounts, some parents are sending a message that they want changes as the lunch program enters their second year this fall.
2% paying full price
Using the Freedom of Information Law, CBC News asked the province how many school meals were paid in its entirety for each two -week request cycle.
At first, approximately four percent of the meals received the total payment of $ 6.50 each. Another 33 percent of the meals received partial payment.
At the end of April, meals with full payment fell to two percent, and partial payments fell to 10 percent.
No one chose to make an additional donation to the program beyond $ 6.50.
Variety of food and quality questions
Armstrong believes in the importance of a school lunch for all children, regardless of payment capacity. But she and her son felt a bit disappointed in the program, and I hope the menu is modified next year.
Henry Armstrong, 7, liked the “Medium” program.
“I liked it a bit, but not really so much,” he said. “I liked the red sauce paste, and some of the sides they had because they were all vegetables and fruits.”
Armstrong still packs lunches often and expects some new options in the menu.
“If a child does not like most of them, even if they try and does not like it, there is actually no room to try new things after that or find the things they like,” he said.
Armstrong said Henry told him that sometimes the food was cold and seemed to have been sitting in the package for a while.
She feels that this reduces “an incredible program, in theory” that can provide all children.
“I think that’s where the biggest problem is,” he said. “I want to make sure food is food that children want to eat and be happy to eat.”
3 different food delivery methods
Aimee Gasparetto is the executive director of Nourish Nueva Scotia, a charity organization that works to ensure that young people have access to healthy foods. He does not deliver the lunch program, but is cooperating with the government about its development.
Gasparetto believes that parents’ concerns about quality and variety are valid, and some menu changes will come in the next year.
But she says that concerns should be considered within the large scale of the program.
“It will take time to adjust the menu, the quality of the food and really make sure that the program over time is adapting to the unique needs of different students in different regions,” he said in a recent interview.
Gasparetto said that although the menu is the same throughout the province, schools have three different ways of obtaining food that depend on the facilities they have.
Some schools make food in their own kitchens with their own staff, and others have catering companies that enter school to make food. Others receive food from a producer outside the site.
Although the province is trying to consistency, she said it can be a challenge.
But he has also been listening to school staff who used to see children without food, and now they can change that.
“This program is about facilitating financial and time pressures on families and also ensuring that each child in school has the opportunity to eat nutritious foods to socialize, learn better and connect with the school environment in a much better way,” he said.
The parents surveyed felt good nutritional, variety without
Through the laws of freedom of information, CBC obtained 19,563 responses to an opinions survey throughout the province about the School Food Program carried out earlier this year. Not all respondents answered all the questions in the survey.
- 4,011 people were “dissatisfied” or “very unsatisfied” with food quality.
- 5,113 people were “dissatisfied” or “very unsatisfied” with the variety of meals.
- 9,161 people were “neutral”, “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with nutritional value.
- 6,205 people said the financial situation was a main factor in their payment.
Thousands of families also said that their children were testing new foods, lunch more regularly, eating more nutritional foods at lunch and feeling more included in school.
All public primary schools in Nueva Scotia participate, and the program will expand to secondary schools in autumn.
“We have a year of data. In this data they are working to incorporate comments and really make improvements in the program,” said Gasparetto.
“We need a couple of years in our belt to really consider all the impacts of this program.”
Fight child poverty
In comparison, Prince Eduardo island also has a payment school lunch program what he can. Last year, the PEI government Released numbers that showed About 13 percent of the meals were completely paid forAnd there was a partial payment of 18 percent of meals.
In Vision of Gasparetto, cost recovery is not the most important; Rather, the program is about building a “more equitable system.”
The investigation published at the end of last year showed that new Scotland has the The highest child poverty rate in the Atlantic of CanadaWith Feed Nova Scotia Informing a jump of almost 70 percent In families that go to food banks since 2021.
“One of the things that school lunch programs have proven to demonstrate is that it can really work to address some of those food insecurity problems,” Gasparetto said.
CBC News requested an interview with the Minister of Provincial Education and Early Childhood Development, Brendan Maguire. The department rejected the application but shared a statement.
“While payments have fluctuated, the participation of the program has remained consistent, and what matters most is that no student is sitting in hunger class,” he said.
The department previously told CBC News that the program offers about 75,000 students and sees about 50 percent participation.
The statement continued to say that the province is looking for “new menu options, quality guarantee tools, sustainable packaging and other actions” to respond to comments on the program.
The province paid $ 18.8 million for the 2024-25 school year. The 2025-26 budget increased to $ 61.2 million to account for the deployment to more schools.
The federal government has committed $ 12.4 million as part of its objective for a national school food program.
‘We will not give up’
Katie Armstrong plans to continue ordering meals that their children will eat. She has two younger children who will enter the elementary school soon.
“100 percent I think the program must stay,” he said. “I think this is the first year that is at stake, and there is always room for change and improvement.
“We will definitely give up,” he said.
