brandis knows the time they spend here matters all day long, they're studying books and then they gete and have a break. kids need food. kids need food before they learn and before they're ready to learn. jonathan winkle is oak park's principal and an advocate for making sure school meal debt doesn't keep a child from eating. we don't know what their home environment is, so it's very important at this one moment of the day where they have a chance to have a warm, home cooked meal here in our cafeteria every kid in his school gets free lunch, even if they can't pay, they eat thanks to a fund set up by the staff. but other schools are struggling to offset the impact of school meal debt. vito malacari is a teacher at a school in northeastern pennsylvania. during the pandemic. to take this a step back, we had a universal breakfast and lunch program that students didn't have to pay for breakfast. they didn't have to pay for lunch. during that time, we saw a student engagement increase. we saw attendance increase, and then those programs disappeared. now, malacari says, some kids aren't eat