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Pulaski County school promotes free, reduced lunch program amid government shutdown

Oakbrooke Elementary is making sure no student goes to school hungry amid the historical government shutdown by encouraging parents to sign up for its free lunch program.

PULASKI COUNTY, Ark. — Oakbrooke Elementary is making sure no student goes to school hungry amid the historical government shutdown by encouraging parents to sign up for its free lunch program.

Since the government shutdown has impacted more than 800,000 federal workers, some right here in Arkansas, the school has come up with a contingency plan to help parents possibly impacted.

"We needed to help students apply for free and reduced lunches if their income status has changed during this school year during this shutdown,” said Kim Truslow, principal.

On Wednesday, as Oakbrooke students filed into their lunch line, school leaders kept an eye on lunch balances.

"We have a system that shows us if the kids are free or not,” said Justin Hendrix, cafeteria director.

Since the start of the school year, the Pulaski County Special School District has received 75 additional Free or Reduced Lunch applications.

However, those can't be attributed to the shutdown alone, but school officials do believe some of those submitted in the past few weeks could be linked to it.
"We want to be responsive to them being able to have students fed for breakfast and lunch,” said Truslow.

For Hendrix he’s spent a lot of time checking abnormal changes on students’ account balances.

"I have my cashier worker right there, and she'll work with me on getting names of kids that are low on their balance and see what's going on at home, and maybe get them on the free or reduced lunch program,” he said.

The goal is for every student to have a happy belly and healthy learning by providing fuel for brain power. 

"The schools do not know how many parents are going to be doing the applying,” said Truslow. “We just want them to understand that the program is available to them, and that they feel comfortable with the process." 

Oakbrooke Elementary did clarify that the Free or Reduced Lunch program funding has not been impacted by the shutdown. In fact, the district is at 56 percent capacity for the program, and is certain more families could benefit from it.

If your child attends a school in the Pulaski County Special School District and need help buying school lunches, you can fill out a Free or Reduced Lunch application on the district’s website.

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