Staff at Thelma R. Parks Elementary in Oklahoma City serve a student breakfast in the school cafeteria on Wednesday. Oklahoma City Public Schools offers all cafeteria meals for free, but other districts charge fees. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY — Multiple Oklahoma school districts say they will continue to charge cafeteria fees despite demands from the state’s public education chief to provide all meals for free.
Serving free meals to all students, as state Superintendent Ryan Walters called for last month, isn’t financially feasible and would require dramatic cost cuts, district officials have said. Unlike other states that made school meals universally free, Oklahoma has not dedicated any extra funds to support the policy…