The Alaska House Education Committee set an amendment deadline Friday for a bill that would eliminate meal costs for students who qualify for reduced-price school meals.

The committee heard House Bill 12 for the fourth time Wednesday morning but took no action on the measure. Co-Chair Julie Himschoot set an amendment deadline of noon Friday, April 10, and said the bill would be taken up at a later date.

The bill targets 3,326 students statewide who qualify for reduced-price meals but must still pay 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch under federal regulations. The families fall into what Representative Maxine Dibert, the bill's sponsor, called a vulnerable category: making too much to qualify for free meals but not enough to fully support their children.

"I know this as a teacher. I have seen the toll that hunger takes on students and our communities," said Dibert, who represents downtown Fairbanks. "Passing this bill would not only feed thousands of hungry children across the state, but also take some of the burden from teachers who are often left to pay for children's meals out of their own pockets."

The committee adopted a substitute version of the bill during a previous hearing. The original version would have made all school meals free at a cost of millions of dollars. The current version narrows the scope to reduced-price meals only.

Legislative aide Seneca Roach said the program would cost roughly $430,000 if every eligible student ate both breakfast and lunch every day of the 180-day school year. That figure represents a cap, Roach said, because not all eligible students apply for the program and not all students eat school meals every day.

"If you are to assume that maybe only like 50 percent of students that are eligible for the program are eating every single day, then it would be somewhere more around like $200,000 or something like that," Roach said.

The bill would create a school reduced-price meal fund and add it to the Pick Click Give program, allowing Alaskans to donate a portion of their Permanent Fund Dividend to help cover meal costs.

Most of the 3,326 eligible students live in more populated areas. The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District has 870 students who qualify for reduced-price meals, followed by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District with 724, Anchorage School District with 637, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District with 557, and Juneau School District with 149.

Dibert said schools in her district already pay thousands of dollars at the end of each year to cover unpaid meal debts. She recounted speaking with a family whose child had accumulated a $100 late fee for school meals the family could not afford.

Representative Alyse Schwanke asked about coordination with existing programs like the Migrant Education Program, which provides free lunches in some districts. Dibert said she would research those programs and provide information to the committee.

Representative CJ McCormick asked whether the bill would address differences between urban and rural schools. Some rural schools do not participate in the federal school meals program due to logistical challenges, including lack of food facilities.

Roach said most rural schools with lower-income populations qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision, which makes meals free for all students in those schools. As a result, most students who currently pay reduced prices live in more populated areas.

"This bill will be a support, and it kind of hones in on just that smaller number of just serving around 3,000 students in Alaska," Dibert said. "And then if we see that this works and if we can continue adding to this legislation to make it better if we see a difference in our communities."

The number of students qualifying for reduced-price meals has declined over the past decade, from roughly 5,300 in 2016 to 3,326 in 2026. Roach attributed part of the decline to outmigration and changing school attendance rates.

Co-Chair Story suggested some students who previously qualified for reduced-price meals may have moved into the free meal category as family incomes declined.

The committee has not yet received an updated fiscal note for the bill. Federal regulations set the maximum charge for reduced-price meals at 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch across all Alaska school districts.

Amendments to House Bill 12 are due to the committee by noon Friday, April 10. The committee will take up the bill again at a future meeting.