who are k-12 students from multilingual homes?
Students from multilingual homes are 5 to 18 years of age who attend a public K-12 school and speak a language other than English at home.
Millions of California students come to school with an invaluable asset: living in homes where a language other than English is spoken. Ensuring these students can leverage their linguistic assets and succeed at school requires meeting their basic needs, including sufficient access to food.
Access to affordable food is essential for everyone, especially for school-aged children. The CalFresh program helps Californians put food on the table by providing monthly benefits for people with low incomes, including K-12 students and their families.
More than 1 out of every 4 California K-12 public school students (27.6%) who live in homes where a language other than English is spoken participate in CalFresh, providing vital food assistance to the households of more than 650,000 students.
CalFresh is a critical part of the social safety net that combats poverty and helps students attend and succeed in school. By providing additional resources for food, CalFresh also frees up household resources for other basic needs such as rent, utilities, or medical care. Meeting the basic needs of many students from multilingual households would be more challenging without the support CalFresh provides.
Support for this report was provided by The Sobrato Family Foundation.
