Governor Dayton serves lunch to students alongside Coon Rapids staff.

Ensuring that Minnesota students are ready to learn when they enter the classroom is critical to improving academic progress and preparing kids for bright futures. To help guarantee that our students have access to healthy meals, we invested $4 million in school breakfast and lunch programs this year. In addition to ensuring no Minnesota student is denied access to a healthy meal at lunchtime, the funding also will provide all 64,000 Minnesota Kindergarten students breakfast.

"No child in Minnesota should be denied a healthy lunch," said Governor Dayton. "We cannot expect our students to succeed on an empty stomach.

The need for this need funding became apparent last January, when Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid released a report revealing that 46 Minnesota school districts had policies that denied students access to a nutritious lunch, if those students do not have sufficient funds to pay for their meal. According to the survey, more than half of all Minnesota school districts provide low-income students alternative meals, such as a cold cheese sandwich, when they are unable to pay the 40 cents required for a reduced-price hot lunch.