Guthrie Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Mike Simpson addressed the Board of Education Monday night, sharing concerns over a recent directive from Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters that all school districts begin providing free school meals to every student, without additional state or federal funding.
Simpson began his remarks by explaining that Walters sent an email directly to parents across Oklahoma on July 7, using a state-collected database obtained without school districts’ knowledge. The email stated that schools would be “mandated” to fully fund student meals beginning with the 2025-26 school year and warned of consequences for districts that do not comply, including financial audits and demands for budget cuts.
Dr. Simpson clarified that such a mandate cannot be enforced without approval from local school boards or the state legislature and governor. He said Guthrie Public Schools has long considered ways to provide universal free meals but has been restricted by a lack of funding for students who do not qualify under the existing free or reduced-price lunch programs.
The superintendent also addressed the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows schools with a high percentage of low-income students to offer free meals to all students. Currently, only two elementary sites in Guthrie qualify for CEP, representing just 18% of the district’s students. The remaining five sites, which include the junior high and high school, do not meet CEP thresholds. As a result, the district would face an estimated $769,000 cost to provide free meals to all students for the upcoming school year, an application that was due before Walters’ July 7 directive.
“I champion the many resources we provide for our students with very diverse needs, including balanced meals during the school year and our summer feeding options,” Simpson stated. “We welcome the discussion and truly hope it is the sincere desire of the State Superintendent to find a mechanism through appropriate funding processes that include the legislature and governor, as well as input from school districts.”
Simpson emphasized that Guthrie’s goal aligns with Walters’ stated vision—to provide meals to every student—but added, “That vision should not come at the expense of something we are already providing for our students.”
The backdrop to this controversy includes Walters’ broader campaign against what he calls “bureaucratic bloat” in school districts, asserting—without substantiated data—that administrators are misusing state and federal lunch funds. He claimed that while schools received over $325 million in state and federal money to feed students in 2023, families were still left with a $42 million lunch bill, all while administrator salaries rose 14%.
Critics across the state, including educators and lawmakers, have labeled Walters’ proposal as an unfunded mandate. Many school districts, including Piedmont and Edmond, expressed concern over the financial feasibility of implementing the directive, especially given that school budgets for the 2025-26 year have already been finalized.
Walters also used the letter to push for sweeping nutritional changes to school meals under Governor Stitt’s “Make Oklahoma Healthy Again” initiative, calling for the removal of foods with artificial dyes, seed oils, and processed snacks.
Here is the full statement from Dr. Mike Simpson:
Last Monday, our State Superintendent sent an email to all parents from a database the State Department of Education, at his direction, has obtained over the course of this past school year. The database was generated by retrieval of student information from all school student records without knowledge of the school districts. The Monday email proclaimed he was mandating that school districts cover the cost of all meals for students beginning with the 2025-26 school year. Since the pandemic, we have been exploring any and all options for Guthrie Public Schools to accomplish what he proposed. Such a mandate could only come from this board or be placed into law by the state legislature and governor. The hurdle to providing these meals has been a lack of state or federal funding for the students who fail to qualify for free or reduced meals. School districts were finally informed of his desire late last Wednesday evening but were never asked what the financial implications to learning such a request would bring.
The school districts who are able to achieve 100% free meal service for their students are doing so through the USDA Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). This requires each site to have enough students eligible for free and reduced lunches through various methods of qualification to allow all students for that site to participate. Currently, we only have two sites eligible for such a qualification so the district would bear the cost of the other remaining five sites. Those two qualifying sites comprise 18% of our students and are all elementary schools. This means 82% of our students attend sites which do not qualify. Because of this disparity, and the huge cost this would place on the district, we have chosen to not make formal application to this program. Additionally, this application was due for submission by June 30th or eight days prior to the email from the State Superintendent. Since the deadline for application to approve our two sites has passed, our estimated cost to Guthrie Public Schools for meals to all students is in excess of $769,000 for the 2025-26 school year.
It is well documented that I champion the many resources we provide for our students with very diverse needs, including balanced meals during the school year or our summer feeding options. We welcome the discussion and truly hope it is the sincere desire of the State Superintendent to find a mechanism through the appropriate funding processes that include the legislature and governor as well as input from school districts. On this topic, his vision is also ours. That vision should not come at the expense of something we are already providing for our students.
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