Offering additional meal options, including hot lunches, would support student well- being, promote equity for students who travel long distances, and ensure all students have the nourishment needed to stay focused and fully engaged during the school day. The current reliance on vending machine items is not sufficient to meet students nutritional needs or sustain their energy for rigorous academic work. Given the unique regional commuting patterns of Virginia Governor Schools, ensuring access to real, nutritious meals is not just beneficial- it is essential for student performance and equity.

I affirm house bill 832 by Pope-Adams. As a student at Appomattox Regional Governor's School in Petersburg, I see students who go without a meal daily. Our school does not provide lunches, and the small amount of food they do provide is sold in vending machines at a higher price. There are students that cannot eat lunch due to the cost of it, and offering school meals can solve this. It is proven that a healthy and nurtured body can improve education, and school lunch offerings will do just that. I urge you to vote yes on delegate Pope-Adams bill not only for the sake of preventing students from going hungry, but also for their education.

I am a parent of an ARGS’ student and the school has been without hot school lunches for quite some time. My daughter has to bring lunch from home everyday. It would be great if students can be provided lunch at school.

I am a first year Appomattox Regional Governor's School parent and was very surprised that no school lunch was offered. Some students travel one hour each morning to attend this school and the student population is composed of a wide variety of economic backgrounds. Attending a Governor's School can be quite demanding and having school lunch available is known to help students' academic performance, health and development.

No child should be hungry at school. That principle is non-negotiable. But HB 832 takes a simple moral goal and turns it into a costly, confusing mandate that schools are not equipped to carry out, especially specialized programs like Governor’s Schools that were never designed to operate cafeterias. This bill requires schools to provide meals on demand, regardless of payment, without providing funding, clear standards, or workable guidance. It pushes costs, staffing burdens, and legal risk onto local and regional boards while restricting their ability to manage growing meal debt responsibly. Vague language like “comparable nutrition” invites disputes and liability, and the ban on third-party collection leaves schools absorbing losses indefinitely. Compassion without capacity doesn’t help students; it quietly drains resources from classrooms, academic programs, and student services that schools already struggle to fund. If lawmakers truly want to protect students: Fund the mandate Clarify expectations Respect operational realities Protect specialized schools from one-size-fits-all rules Good policy doesn’t force schools to choose between feeding students and funding instruction. Do not support HB 832 as written. Pause it. Fix the funding. Clarify the requirements. And protect schools from unintended damage.

As introduced, the bill would have unintended consequences on Governor's Schools that do not serve as full-day comprehensive high schools. I speak from my experience as an Academic-year Governor's School Director, co-chair of the AYGS Directors committee, and chair of the Virginia Advisory Committee for Advanced Learning (I am not speaking on behalf of these groups formally because the membership haven't voted on a stance, but I do speak with expertise in this area). I do support the spirit behind the bill, but feel the language needs to be updated to read as below (see attached for color coded indication of changes made). If that language is substituted then I support this legislation whole-heartedly. Updated language: Requires the regional governing board of each academic year Governor's School serving as a full-day comprehensive high school to (i) either (a) require such school to participate in the federal National School Lunch Program and the federal School Breakfast Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through partnership with a participating school division or (b) if facility and staffing limitations preclude participation in such federal programs, through partnership with a participating school division offer students, to the maximum extent practicable, lunch and breakfast that are of a comparable nutrition profile to meals that would be provided pursuant to such federal programs and (ii) make such lunch and breakfast available to any student who requests such a meal, regardless of whether such student has the money to pay for the meal or owes money for meals previously provided, unless the student's parent has provided written permission to the regional governing board to withhold such a meal from the student. The bill provides that the foregoing provisions shall not be construed to limit the ability of a regional governing board to collect payment for meals so provided, as long as such board does not utilize a nongovernmental third-party debt collector to collect on such debt.

SOL, growth assessments, district given testing should never be allowed to be a part of the child’s final grade. We have made our children and teachers into robots. They are no longer teaching content but teaching to a test. Our children are the ones being sacrificed. The wording on the SOL and district testing is so far complex no wonder they can get through it. There are children who have developed severe test anxiety from your extensive testing at such a young age. Why would you ever think it would be ok to penalize them and count any of your SOL or district tests as their grades???? In my opinion get rid of the testing! Get rid of the chromebooks. Let the teachers get back to real educating. You will find your data and numbers might drastically change.