Wake County Public Schools · Need, Equity & the Case for Universal Meals

Full Plates, Full Potential

Where school-meal need concentrates — and the case for free meals

In Wake County, the highest-poverty schools carry far higher chronic absenteeism and discipline. The district's Angel Fund pays down unpaid meal balances so no child is shamed at the lunch line — but it's a donation-backed stopgap being outpaced by the debt, and it leaves the paying system, and its stigma, in place. Because the evidence shows that what improves attendance and discipline is making meals universal — through stigma removal, not debt relief — this baseline reads Wake's meal-debt crisis as the case for universal free school meals. Where the debt itself concentrates is an open question the pending records will answer — and it may be a "missing middle," not the poorest schools.

Source NC DPI School Report Cards · 2023–24 Unit School-year (Wake, public, school-level) Method Descriptive · not causal

◆ Live dashboard. A view of where school-meal need concentrates across Wake County, built on real NC DPI 2023–24 data with a real county map. The data lives in a PostgreSQL database, is processed in Python, and is served as a lightweight JavaScript + D3 page — every figure pre-computed offline, none in the browser. Built with Claude Code. The CEP comparison (P4b) is a wired stub until the SY2023-24 CEP list is added; the meal-debt + Angel Fund layer (P9) arrives with the pending records request.

Overview

district_kpis.json

EDS economically disadvantaged students · ADM average daily membership (enrollment) · ESSA Every Student Succeeds Act — the federal school-improvement flag

Chronic absenteeism, by student group district · verified

ShowsHow chronic absenteeism varies across student groups district-wide. So whatEconomically disadvantaged students — those most likely to carry meal debt — miss school at roughly 2.7× the rate of White students. Can'tShow why; these are group averages, not individual students.

Poverty landscape

landscape.json · public/geo

Where meal-debt risk concentrates — by count (how the schools are spread across poverty levels) and by place (where they sit on the real county map).

Distribution of school poverty

share of students economically disadvantaged · all schools

ShowsHow concentrated disadvantage is across schools. So whatPoverty isn't spread evenly — a distinct tail of schools carries it.

Need, geographically

zip choropleth on real Wake County geography · shaded by % economically disadvantaged

ShowsReal zip polygons (joined by ZIPNUM) shaded by the per-zip average, framed by the county outline. So whatSurfaces whether need clusters in particular parts of the county — the place dimension the state's tool has no view of. Can'tZips with no public school are unshaded; a zip average blends very different schools.

EDS economically disadvantaged students · need score a 0–4 count of warning signs per school (defined in P5) · ZIPNUM the zip-code field in the map's GeoJSON

The poverty gradient

landscape.json

Group schools into low- / medium- / high-poverty and read each outcome across the three. Performance is split by level (proficiency for K-8, graduation for high schools) because they're different measures.

ShowsAverage outcomes for schools grouped by poverty level. So whatThe plainest version of the thesis: as school poverty rises, every outcome worsens. Can'tSeparate poverty from school level; high-poverty buckets may skew toward certain grade levels.

K-8 kindergarten–8th grade (measured by proficiency) · HS high school (measured by graduation rate)

Relationships

correlations.json

Cross-school correlations the report-card tool never shows. r is a −1 to 1 number for how strongly two measures move together.

Poverty & chronic absenteeism

one dot = one school

Pearsonr = –n = –

Companion scatters in the same file: poverty × discipline, absenteeism × discipline, and two split performance scatters (K-8 proficiency, HS graduation).

Correlation matrix

every pair · performance shown as its two real measures

ShowsPoverty, absenteeism, and discipline move together as one web of barriers — and poverty tracks weaker proficiency and lower graduation. Can'tProve causation, and these are schools, not students (the ecological fallacy). The graduation cells rest on few schools.

P4b

CEP vs non-CEP — does universal free lunch move outcomes here?

cep_comparison.json · stub → live on data

The closest test, on public data, of the mechanism the research actually supports: do Wake's universal-free-meal (CEP) schools show better attendance and lower discipline than comparable non-CEP schools — compared within the same poverty band, so poverty isn't the difference?

CEP Community Eligibility Provision — the federal program that lets high-poverty schools serve free meals to all students, no application needed

Need ranking

need_index.json

A transparent 0–4 need score: +1 each for high poverty (≥60% disadvantaged), and for absenteeism, discipline, and low performance that are worse than the median school of the same level. The state's A–F grade and the federal ESSA flag sit alongside as independent cross-checks, not inputs.

Highest-need schools

need score

#	School	Lvl	Poverty	EDS %	Absent %	Disc /1k	Perf	Need	SPG	Flags

EDS % % economically disadvantaged students · Disc /1k discipline incidents per 1,000 students · Lvl school level (E / M / H = elementary / middle / high) · Perf performance (K-8 proficiency or HS graduation rate) · SPG NC School Performance Grade (A–F) · ESSA federal Every Student Succeeds Act improvement flag

Need-score distribution · all schools

A combo tag marks K-8 / 6-12 schools (compared to the level whose tests they share); incomplete marks a school scored on fewer than 4 components.

ShowsWhere meal-debt relief would likely do the most good, as a ranked, explainable list. Can'tThese are priority candidates, not confirmed treatment schools. The score is a heuristic, not a validated instrument.

Does the need score hold up?

need_index.json

A self-check: if our independent 0–4 score lines up with the state's letter grades and the federal improvement flags, that's evidence it's measuring something real.

Average need score, by state SPG grade

should climb from A to F

ESSA overlap

share of schools the federal government already flagged

–%

of high-need schools (score ≥ 3)
are ESSA-designated

–%

of lower-need schools (score < 3)
are ESSA-designated

So whatThe contrast is the validation — high-need schools are far more likely to already be flagged.

SPG NC School Performance Grade (the state's A–F school grade) · ESSA Every Student Succeeds Act (federal improvement flag) — both are independent cross-checks, not inputs to the need score

Equity gaps

equity_gaps.json

The disadvantage gap isn't one number — it shows up on every outcome the Angel Fund could touch. And in the poorest schools, it isn't only disadvantaged students who struggle.

Concentrated poverty lifts everyone's absenteeism district · verified

chronic absenteeism by student group, across school poverty levels

FindingIn the poorest schools even White students reach ~25% chronic absenteeism — above the district average. Concentrated poverty lifts absenteeism across the whole school community, not just disadvantaged students. NoteThe disadvantaged−All gap narrows in high-poverty schools, but that's compositional: there most students are disadvantaged, so "All" ≈ "Disadvantaged." The disadvantaged−White gap is the cleaner comparison. So whatA stronger case for school-wide relief — entire high-poverty schools are struggling, so universal meals fit the problem better than a story about a few kids.

Disadvantaged vs. peers, across outcomes

economically disadvantaged · all students · White

Suspensions, by student group published rates

short-term suspensions per 1,000 · solid line = district average

CareOfficial NC DPI published rates, shown descriptively — no causal or attributive claim about why disparities exist.

EDS economically disadvantaged students · STS short-term suspensions (per 1,000 students) · NC DPI North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

The post-COVID trend

trend.json

The one view that moves through time. Chronic absenteeism roughly doubled after COVID and remains well above pre-pandemic levels.

ShowsDistrict chronic absenteeism, 2018–2024. Note2020 (7.6%) is artificially low — schools closed mid-year, so the measurement broke down; it is not a real baseline. So whatAdds the time dimension; any outcome evaluation comes later and carefully — not a naive before/after.

Meal debt & Angel Fund

phase B · pending records request

◌ Awaiting WCPSS records — this panel activates when the request returns

Where the debt sits — and whether the fund can keep up

Everything above is the public baseline. The records request adds the meal-debt and Angel Fund figures by school — and answers the open question: where does the debt actually concentrate? It may not be the poorest schools (those are often where meals are already free for everyone), but a "missing middle" of families too well-off for free meals yet too strapped to pay. These are descriptive overlays — not a before/after of the fund.

Meal-debt balance by school — the open question
Debt vs. donations over time — the sustainability gap
Need map × angel-account funding — do the highest-need schools have the emptiest accounts?
Free / reduced / paid meal participation
SY2023-24 CEP school list → activates P4b
PowerSchool ↔ DPI agency-code crosswalk

WCPSS Wake County Public School System · CEP Community Eligibility Provision (universal free meals) · DPI NC Department of Public Instruction · PowerSchool the district's student-records system