Before the school day begins, hundreds of thousands of students across North Carolina eat school breakfast — in the cafeteria, in the classroom, from grab-and-go kiosks, and more.

In the , the most recent available data, more than 73 million school breakfasts were served to roughly 470,000 students across the state. The majority of them were provided for free.

that eating school breakfast is associated with a variety of positive outcomes for students, including improved and better .

“School breakfast offers a peace of mind to these students that do not get food at home,” said Keli McNeill, a parent in Richmond County, during a meeting ahead of . “They can come into school knowing, ‘I might be hungry right now, but in another 10 minutes, I’m not going to be hungry anymore, because I’m going to have food, and I’m going to be able to make it through my day.’ It’s about so much more than food.”

Yet traditional school breakfast approaches, which often require students to arrive before class begins and eat in the cafeteria, can limit access to these important meals.

To increase participation in school breakfast, districts across the state are implementing innovative breakfast models, including breakfast served in the classroom, grab-and-go kiosks, and second chance breakfast, often served after first period.

In 2024, then-Gov. Roy Cooper in NC Innovative School Breakfast Grants to help 42 school districts and charter schools implement innovative school breakfast models and expand student participation.

Districts are also increasingly offering free breakfast to all students under the federal (CEP), available to high-poverty schools.

Advocates in North Carolina, including the coalition, have called for school breakfast to be provided to all students at no cost. In March 2025, Gov. Josh Stein for all public school students in his state budget proposal.

Then, in April, a “” bill was introduced in the General Assembly, sponsored by four Republican House members. Although the bill did not move forward, it garnered support from both Democrats and Republicans, with more than 50 sponsors.

“If we really want to change our education system, one way is to start by giving every student a nice, nutritious start to the day,” said Tami Poland, principal of Swift Creek Elementary in Johnston County, during the School Meals for All NC meeting.

Innovative breakfast models increase participation in Mitchell County Schools

Heather Calhoun has worked in , located in the mountains of western North Carolina, for 27 years. Calhoun considers herself a big advocate for school breakfast and said she has seen the benefits that eating breakfast provides to students firsthand.

“We know hungry kids are not going to learn — they’re not going to do well on tests,” she said, adding that skipping breakfast can also lead to malnutrition and poor behavior.

Today, the roughly in Mitchell County Schools are served free breakfast and lunch through CEP. But according to Calhoun, the district offered free breakfast to all students even before CEP was in place. Soon after, participation in school meals increased as the stigma associated with identifying students by their free, reduced, or paid meals status was gone.

“That’s one of the things I think has really been great for our county and our students — making sure that they have a good breakfast every day,” she said.

The district has also implemented two innovative models to increase participation: breakfast in the classroom and second chance breakfast.

For K-8 students, a cart in the hallway allows them to pick up breakfast and eat it in their homeroom while morning announcements and other activities begin. Calhoun said these breakfast carts have been the most effective approach in increasing breakfast participation, and that students participate at much higher rates compared to serving breakfast in the cafeteria.

“If you say, ‘OK, come into the lunchroom and come through the line and get it,’ they don’t do it,” she said. “We tried that one time 
 and half the kids didn’t eat.”

For high school students, a second chance breakfast is provided in addition to traditional breakfast in the cafeteria. After the first class block, a cart circles around the hallways, offering a chance for students to eat who may have missed breakfast before the first bell.

“A lot of kids at the high school, they’re not going to get there 30 minutes before class, or they want to go hang out with their friends,” said Calhoun. “They don’t want to stop by the cafeteria.”

Students’ favorite breakfast items include chicken biscuits, sausage biscuits, and a cheese stick with yogurt or whole grain crackers.

Calhoun said she would like to serve more protein-rich and less grain-focused items, but that those products can often be more expensive, making it difficult to serve them within current federal reimbursement rates. For each free school breakfast served, school districts receive roughly , which has to cover the costs of food, labor, equipment, and more.

Even if an affordable item is identified, other barriers can stand in the way of sourcing new products. There may be manufacturing or procurement challenges, or the product might not be available in bulk, requiring more staff capacity to individually wrap each item before it goes on the breakfast cart.

“It’s like a Rubik’s Cube — I always say that about school nutrition,” said Calhoun. “It’s like that puzzle, where you have to fit all the pieces together.”

Free breakfast for all makes a difference at Dillard Academy

Located in Goldsboro, is a K-8 public charter school that opened in 1998 with the goal of providing more personalized instruction for local students. That’s according to Danielle Baptiste, the school’s executive director and daughter of the school’s founder, .

In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations of Dillard Academy, Baptiste also serves as the school nutrition director, ensuring roughly have access to meals each day.

“We’re a very small school, and so you end up having to be that jack-of-all-trades,” she said.

Through CEP, all students receive free meals at Dillard Academy. When students get off of the bus, they have the opportunity to go into the cafeteria and eat, with about 60% of students participating in breakfast each morning. If students get dropped off late, breakfast service continues until 9 a.m.

“We really want to make sure that our students are fed and have that basic level of need met when they go into the classroom so they can maximize their instruction, their learning,” said Baptiste.

As a small charter school, Baptiste said being able to provide free meals to all students has provided multiple benefits. It serves as a draw for parents, who have the peace of mind that there will always been food available for their student. For the school’s small staff, it has reduced the administrative burden of providing meals, as they do not have to collect meal applications or verify eligibility for free or reduced-price meals.

“It’s super simple — every child with a lunch number gets a free lunch and a free breakfast and a free snack,” said Baptiste.

She has also seen a reduction in the stigma associated with participating in school meals, especially among older students.

“It’s not necessarily cool to eat in the cafeteria — but if they see something they really like, they can make that decision right there on the spot,” she said.

Baptiste said her mother’s decision to offer school breakfast and lunch from the very first day the charter school opened reflects a strong belief in the importance of meeting students’ basic needs.

“In education, we don’t always think about how important it is to make sure our students are well fed — and that really feeds their brain for the rest of the day,” said Baptiste.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Sarah Osofsky returned to school last year to earn her master’s degree in social work, hoping to give back to her community and find a job that would pay enough to survive Hawaiʻi’s high cost of living.

Now, less than two weeks away from graduation, the mother of two is struggling to find a position that can sustain her family.

Most social work jobs she’s seen in recent months offer salaries of $60,000 or less — enough to disqualify her from safety net programs like food stamps, but not enough to comfortably provide for her kids. She’s considered moving back to California where she has family who could support her, but she wants to stay in Hawaiʻi so her children can be near their dad.

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“What I’m balancing right now is, do I take a low, low paying job that then I’ll qualify for services like food stamps and Medicaid,” Osofsky said, “or do I hold out and try to find those few and far between really good jobs that will make enough so I don’t qualify but I don’t need it.”

Osofsky’s struggle is a familiar one for working families in Hawaiʻi. In 2024, nearly 30% of Hawaiʻi households were living paycheck-to-paycheck and struggling to afford basic necessities like housing, child care and food, according to an annual count of the state’s ALICE families — an acronym for people who are asset limited, income constrained, and employed.

Like Osofsky, roughly 40% of these families considered leaving the state over the past year, according to a study from Aloha United Way.

While some reports indicate that more locals have been returning to Hawaiʻi in the last few years, the state’s high cost of living continues to drive some families away, straining the public education system and economy.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education said its kindergarten enrollment dropped from 13,000 in 2019 to nearly 10,800 this year, citing estimates that 20% of people leaving Hawaiʻi are school-aged kids. The department is now starting the process of consolidating small schools, although it hasn’t yet identified which campuses are at risk of closure.

A few years ago, state lawmakers grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic proposed a bold slate of reforms to improve the plight of working families: free school meals for all, universal access to preschool and paid family leave. But the state’s big plans for progress have resulted in incremental steps, and some families and advocates say change isn’t happening quickly enough.

Lawmakers this session created a working group to study paid family leave but failed to turn the yearslong proposal into law. The state expanded eligibility for preschool tuition subsidies and funded preschool construction but failed to address the ongoing shortage of early learning educators. And Senate Bill 1300 — considered one of the biggest wins for students this year — expanded access to free school meals but stopped short of providing them for all kids.

At the same time, uncertainty looms around the future of programs that rely on federal dollars to support working families, including school meals and early learning centers.

Amid the upheaval, state lawmakers were hesitant to pass big spending measures this year, opting instead to set aside $200 million to help Hawaiʻi prepare for federal funding cuts. But some advocates say now is exactly the time for the state to make a bigger investment in families.

“The state Legislature, and frankly, the counties, should be thinking, ‘Bad stuff is coming,’” said Deborah Zysman, executive director of Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network. “We don’t quite know what yet, but we should be thinking about how to take care of our own people.”

An Urgent Need For Child Care

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Osofsky worried about the social development of her son, who was just turning 2 when lockdown restrictions began. But when he began attending the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Children’s Center later that year, Osofsky said, he received services for his speech delay and became comfortable making friends and recognizing letters.

But paying for preschool was a challenge, Osofsky said. The Preschool Open Doors program provides a state subsidy to help cover tuition, but her son was ineligible when he started because the program only covered 4-year-olds at the time. The program expanded to include 3-year-olds last year.

Hawaiʻi has pledged to offer preschool to all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032. The Ready Keiki initiative, led by Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, currently estimates the state needs to add more than 330 classrooms in the next seven years to provide preschool to an additional 6,700 children.

While lawmakers successfully expanded access to tuition subsidies and funded more preschool construction this year, progress toward the state’s ambitious goal has slowed on other fronts.

One successful bill this session expands eligibility for preschool subsidies by including 2-year-olds and repealing the requirement that families must use the subsidy at a nationally accredited provider, which has created financial and administrative barriers for smaller programs in the past, Zysman said.

But the Department of Human Services is on track to spend only $20 million of its $50 million budget for preschool subsidies this year, said Scott Morishige, administrator of the department’s Benefit, Employment and Support Services Division.

To ramp up its spending, DHS is considering expanding the income eligibility to 500% of the federal poverty line. If DHS adopts the rules this summer, Morishige said, a family of four could make up to $184,000 annually and still be eligible for assistance, compared to the past income limit of $110,000.

The state budget sets aside $20 million to build more public preschool classrooms over the next three years. The state plans on opening 25 public preschool classrooms this fall and an additional 25 classrooms the following year, far less than previous estimates that Hawaiʻi could build 40-50 classrooms annually.

While the state would like to take a more aggressive approach to opening public preschool classrooms moving forward, Luke said, the Ready Keiki initiative is also relying on private providers and charter schools to help expand access. The state is starting larger construction projects, like standalone preschool centers, that could add seats more rapidly as they open in the next few years.

“There is an urgency for us to open as many preschool seats as we can,” she said.

But families’ demand for preschool could grow beyond what the state has anticipated if the federal government stops funding its own child care programs. Head Start, which relies on federal funding and serves roughly 2,800 children and pregnant mothers, is currently Hawaiʻi’s largest provider of early learning services, said Ryan Kusumoto, president and CEO of the nonprofit Parents And Children Together.

The Trump administration has previously threatened to cut funding entirely for Head Start, although the most recent version of the federal budget keeps program funding intact. Some Hawaiʻi Head Start programs are still waiting to receive confirmation for next year’s funding, and the recent closure of some regional offices could create backlogs in awarding this money, said Ben Naki, president of the Head Start Association of Hawaiʻi.

“There’s no existing infrastructure that can pick up those 2,800 kids,” Kusumoto said. “And we’re talking about kids who don’t have any other resources.”

First Steps For Free Meals

Since September, Christine Russo said paying for meals has become a greater challenge for her family as her twins joined her 10-year-old in attending school every day. She sets aside roughly $180 each month so her kids can purchase breakfast and lunch at school — a challenge for the public school teacher, whose husband is a retail store manager.

Russo’s kids don’t qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, but she said her family could still benefit from the ongoing push to bring back a pandemic-era program that made meals free for all students.

Lawmakers stopped short of funding a universal free meals program this year but took incremental steps by passing Senate Bill 1300. Starting next year, the state will provide free school meals to students who currently qualify for reduced-price lunch. The following year, eligibility for free school meals would be expanded to families making up to 300% of the federal poverty level, or roughly $110,000 for a family of four.

The bill appropriates $565,000 to provide more free school meals next year and an additional $3.4 million for the program’s expansion the following year. More than 68,000 students in the Department of Education qualified for free meals this year, and 10,000 qualified for reduced-price meals.

The bill also requires schools feed students who don’t have enough money to purchase lunch or already have meal debt. Students have accrued more than $105,000 in meal debt this school year, DOE communications director Nanea Ching said.

At Castle High School, junior Tayli Kahoopii said she receives free meals, but some of her friends don’t qualify. When someone doesn’t have enough money in their account to purchase lunch, the register makes a buzzing sound — loud enough to embarrass students and, in one instance, deter Kahoopii’s friend from trying to purchase meals for a week.

“On a daily basis, you see kids getting their food taken away, and there’s really nothing that they can do about it,” Kahoopii said, adding that it’s difficult for students to learn and focus when they don’t have access to food during the school day.

Rep. Scot Matayoshi, who has introduced bills for the past three years proposing free school meals, said SB1300 is an important step. But he still plans on advocating for universal free school meals in the coming years, especially since it would reduce the administrative barriers schools and families face in determining who qualifies for free meals.

Daniela Spoto, director of food equity at Hawaiʻi Appleseed, said providing all students with free school meals could also become more important with federal funding on the line. Proposed federal cuts to a program allowing schools in low-income areas to provide free meals to all children could impact 52 schools and more than 27,000 kids in Hawaiʻi, according to estimates from the Food Research and Action Center.

“It should be a staple for our schools to have free school lunch,” said Castle junior Haliʻa Tom-Jardine, who will begin qualifying for free school meals next year. “It should be a right.”

‘Bad Things Are Coming’

During the pandemic, people saw lawmakers step up and meet the needs of working families through federal initiatives like the child tax credit and free school meals, said Kayla Keehu-Alexander, vice president of community impact at Aloha United Way. Now, she said, state lawmakers need to do the same during times of uncertainty.

“If we don’t start making some big policy changes around the cost of living, around housing, we could potentially be looking at a larger out-migration than we’ve had in the past,” she said.

Hawaiʻi is already starting to see the possible impacts of out-migration on its schools and economy. While some people are coming back to Hawaiʻi to raise families, Keehu-Alexander said, it’s unclear if they’re joining the workforce in areas with the worst staffing shortages, like education or healthcare.

Looking ahead to next year, Zysman said she would like to see a successful bill establishing paid family leave in Hawaiʻi, which would provide caregivers paid time off to care for their loved ones. Lawmakers have failed to pass a bill for several years, although they did approve a resolution last month establishing a working group that will study how to implement paid family leave over the next year.

Zysman added that she’s concerned about the long-term impacts of the historic tax cut lawmakers passed last year. While she supports cuts that can make it more affordable for people to stay in Hawaiʻi, she said, she’s worried that tax breaks for the wealthiest will make it harder for the state to fund programs that can keep working families afloat.

“In my gut, I feel like bad things are coming,” Zysman said, “and we should have acted more preemptively.”

This was originally published on . Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Every school in Kentucky’s LaRue County provides free breakfast and lunch to any student who wants it.

It’s been that way for a decade, ever since the federal government launched a program allowing LaRue County Schools, and thousands of other districts nationwide, to skip the paperwork asking how much families earn.

In these communities, lots of kids already receive other kinds of assistance for low-income families. Federal officials saw a way to make the subsidized meals program more efficient: Cover meal costs based on how many children are in similar assistance programs, rather than verify every family’s income.

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But LaRue County Schools won’t be able to do that anymore if sweeping changes to social programs proposed by congressional Republicans become law. GOP lawmakers say they want to ensure only eligible families get help and that taxpayer dollars are reserved for the neediest students, so that federal subsidies for school meals remain sustainable. But by one estimate, the Republicans’ plan would affect nearly a quarter of the students in the nation’s public schools.

, increase test scores, and decrease suspensions, likely because it eliminates the stigma students often associate with the free meals. Taking them away from students on a large scale could also have downstream effects on everything from families’ household budgets to local unemployment.

Stephanie Utley, the LaRue County district’s director of child nutrition, said that inevitably, fewer kids would eat school meals, either because their families no longer qualify for free breakfast and lunch or because they cannot produce documents to verify their income.

When fewer kids eat school meals, it’s harder for districts to cover their costs. To save money, Utley would likely swap higher-quality foods for cheaper ones, she said.

Apples and beef from local farms would go. The high school would serve fewer salads — they’d be too labor-intensive to prep. And a popular chicken breast sandwich would become a ground chicken patty.

Utley may have to lay off staff, too, she said, which would hurt the rural community’s economy.

“We’re the biggest restaurant in town,” she said. “It would be a nightmare.”

GOP school meals proposals would impact states

Republican lawmakers are considering a trio of proposals to help offset tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump that would be “devastating” to children and schools, said Erin Hysom, the senior child nutrition policy analyst for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center.

One proposal would dramatically increase the share of students who need to be enrolled in aid programs — such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — for schools to be eligible to serve free meals to all kids through the .

Right now, schools need to show 25% of students are enrolled in those kinds of assistance programs to participate in community eligibility. The House Republican proposal would raise the share to 60% — higher than the threshold has ever been. That would kick more than 24,000 schools off of community eligibility, and some 12 million students would no longer automatically qualify for free meals, .

Essentially, only communities where nearly every child qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch could serve free meals to all kids.

“They’ve really moved the needle to the upper echelon of poverty,” Hysom said. “You couldn’t get any higher than that.”

Another proposal would require all families who don’t automatically qualify for free school meals through programs like SNAP to submit documents to verify their income with their application. That would burden families and schools with time-consuming added paperwork. Schools could end up cutting staff who serve food and work on school menus to hire more people to process applications.

Together, those changes would save $12 billion over 10 years, according to , the Republican chair of the House budget committee.

A third proposal would change how families qualify for SNAP and likely for free school meals. That would increase the paperwork burden even more.

All of that would make it more costly for to run their programs, because they rely heavily on federal reimbursement. whether they .

These three proposals are part of a process known as budget reconciliation that GOP lawmakers are using . As of Wednesday, that would keep funding essentially flat for the Agriculture Department, which pays for the school meal program, through the end of September.

School staff and child nutrition advocates are taking the House’s budget reconciliation proposals seriously. The Trump administration has already .

Free school meal cutbacks would have ripple effects

If fewer kids have access to free meals at school, more families would likely struggle to afford groceries at home. Many families who don’t qualify for free meals struggle to pay for food. This school year, a family of four qualified for free school meals if they made under $40,560 a year.

When schools eliminated free school meals for all following the pandemic, there was a , an issue school staff say will only intensify if these proposals go through.

Right now, schools typically have to verify the family’s income for 3% of their applications. If schools had to check income for every application, the burden would be enormous, school staff and child nutrition advocates said.

Many families who eke out a living working multiple jobs would have a hard time gathering up all the required documents to show how much they earn. Though children can participate in the school meals program regardless of their immigration status, undocumented parents may be afraid to hand over personal documents when Trump is threatening mass deportations.

“Eligible children are going to fall through the cracks,” Hysom said.

Many schools are already facing financial pressures from higher-than-usual food and labor costs, a . On top of that, schools are navigating new and stricter requirements for how much salt and sugar can be in food served by schools.

Schools have to buy most of their food from American sources, but if Trump puts certain tariffs in place for the long term, that could create new financial constraints.

“Cost is absolutely a concern,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and conducted the survey. “When avocados or tomatoes from Mexico become much more expensive, that will cause an increase in demand for domestic produce, and an increase in price, as well.”

Shannon Gleave, the president of the School Nutrition Association, understands the need to make sure the school meal program runs as it should.

In Arizona’s Glendale Elementary School District, where Gleave is the director of food and nutrition, kids can speed through the lunch line because everyone qualifies for free meals. But staff scan student ID badges to make sure each kid only takes one meal, and that children with dietary restrictions get the right food.

Upping the verification requirements a little could work, she said. But verifying 100% of applications “is not an efficient use of time.”

“There is no way my existing staff could do that now,” she said. “You have to figure out a way to be good stewards of resources, but also look at the amount of administrative burden that it’s going to entail.”

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

All Alaska students could be provided free breakfast and lunch at school, under a new bill in the Alaska Legislature.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Dibert of Fairbanks prefiled the legislation, , ahead of the legislative session that began on Tuesday. The bill would direct the state to provide sufficient funding to all districts to have breakfast and lunch for any student who requests it, free of cost.

“I’ve seen the effects of feeding our kids, and especially during COVID, when all kids got lunches and breakfast at no cost,” said Dibert, who has been a teacher. “So it was just very enlightening, and I would love to see that again for our families and for our students and for our school staff.”

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal relief funding allowed schools to provide free meals due to federal waivers. But those funds sunsetted in 2022, resulting in some

, over half of Alaska’s students — 51% — were eligible for free or reduced price meals. An estimated 46%, or roughly 48,000 students, were enrolled to receive free school meals.

As an elementary school teacher in Fairbanks for 22 years, Dibert said she herself sometimes paid for her students to eat, rather than see them go hungry.

“Over the years, if a student didn’t have enough money, or their bill wasn’t paid, oftentimes I would even pay with my account,” she said. “I don’t know entirely how big those bills got, because I was on the classroom side of it. But I did really not like seeing kids come into the classroom sad that they couldn’t get breakfast or lunch.”

Dibert, who is Koyukon Athabascan, also cited the current Yukon River salmon crash leaving communities and families who subsisted and shared fish going without.

“My grandparents lived out on the Yukon River, and as a child, they would always send us salmon from the Yukon River. And we always would have food on our table, lots of salmon,” she said. “So with no salmon on the Yukon, I know that’s a hardship to feed families, and it’s costly to families. So in that aspect, this bill could be very beneficial to ease the pain there, to help feed kids.”

Education and health researchers point to universal free meals having for students, including improved academic performance, attendance and student health outcomes.

Dibert said the bill is in the beginning stages of the legislative process, so details will be worked out, but she hopes the program would also promote local foods on school menus, like salmon or moose. “It would be working district by district, for sure,” she said. “I don’t want it to be canned, you know, protein, like, one grain, one fruit.”

The allocations to school districts would also vary by region and food prices, she said, accommodating notoriously higher grocery prices in Alaska’s rural areas.

She said funding the proposal could include some federal or municipal contributions as well.

“It’s not that much to have the opportunity to feed our kids,” she said.

Last year, the Legislature axed funding for making reduced-priced lunches free for low-income students, The estimated $480,000 in funding was to be taken from the Department of Corrections, but lawmakers voted against it.

Once the bill has been formally introduced during a House floor session, it will next be assigned to relevant committees for discussion and debate in the coming weeks.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.

New York state’s 2.7 million students may soon have access to free school breakfast and lunch if a proposal by Governor Kathy Hochul makes it through this session’s budget negotiations.

Nearly children in New York were food insecure in 2022 — up significantly from — and research shows that students underperform when they are hungry, the governor said during her on Tuesday.

“It pains me as a mom to think of little kids’ stomachs growling while they’re in school while they’re supposed to be learning,” Hochul said. “In the wealthiest country in the world, this can no longer be tolerated.”

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Senator Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas have been pushing for a universal school meal program for the last three years, but the full proposal never made it through . The legislature did, however, provide funding to cover up to 90 percent of students, according to a representative from González-Rojas’s office

New York City, Albany, Rochester and Yonkers have their own universal free school meal programs. With President-elect Donald Trump for school meals, a state program could fill in the remaining gaps.

Hochul estimated that free breakfast and lunch could save families as much as $1,600 per child per year. For the 2025-26 school year, the program is expected to cost $340 million, according to the governor’s office.

Among her other education-focused policy proposals, Hochul is also pushing to make community college free for students who enter certain fields, including teaching and nursing. The governor has also indicated that, as part of her executive budget, she will propose legislation to curb the use of smartphones at school, a move she has been considering for months.

Conspicuously absent from Hochul’s speech was any mention of , which the state uses to distribute the majority of funding to schools. During last year’s State of the State, she noted that New York had set aside for the program, fully funding it for the first time since its implementation in 2007.

Last year, the state legislature also gave $2 million to the Rockefeller Institute to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the formula and suggest ways to improve it. The think tank released its final report in December, providing a list of recommendations that the governor and legislature can choose to implement — or not — during this year’s budget negotiations.

This was originally published on .

Nearly 800,000 kids are eating free meals in school after the Legislature expanded access — but the state will need to come up with more money if it wants to continue the program.

That’s according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, which announced on Tuesday that 70% of Washington’s kids now have access to school meals at no cost to students or families.

But the state underestimated how many students would participate — leading Superintendent Chris Reykdal to to continue feeding this many kids.

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The office’s request says that the gap in funding can also be attributed to adjustments in how much the federal government reimburses for its free meal program and an increase in students who meet the income requirements. About 50.1% of students are designated as low-income this year, up from 46.8% in the 2019-2020 school year.

“As we all battle rising inflation and our budgets getting tighter, these programs provide much needed financial relief to families statewide,” Reykdal said.

Hungry students are more likely to have attention and behavioral issues, face academic challenges and develop poor eating habits.

The Legislature has gradually increased Washington’s free school meal program over the past four years, an effort spearheaded by state Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane.

Under Riccelli’s , passed in 2023, if at least 40% of a school’s population was eligible for the federal free and reduced meal program, then the school had to provide the meals at no charge to any student who requests a breakfast, lunch or both. The new rules took effect in the 2023-2024 school year.

Beginning in the current school year, the program expanded to schools where at least 30% of the population is eligible for the federal meals program.

According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the number of lunches served at Washington schools operating the new free meal program increased 32% from the previous year, and the number of breakfasts served increased 50%.

In the 2024-2025 school year, 1,523 schools are serving free meals to all students who requested one — up from 1,269 in the 2023-2024 school year.

Riccelli tried to pass a universal free school meals bill , but the state determined it would cost too much at about $115 million a year, Riccelli told the Standard in February.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

WASHINGTON — Amid persistent  in the United States, lawmakers and advocates on Wednesday stressed the importance of school meal programs during a U.S. Senate Agriculture subcommittee hearing.

Hunger severely impacts  and can lead to negative outcomes in school, . Last year, 47.4 million people lived in food-insecure households, according to the .

Federally funded efforts, such as the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, provide free and reduced-cost meals to students across the country.

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Advocates say these programs play a crucial role in helping to reduce child hunger and urged the panel to expand them.

“School lunch should always be free and definitely free of judgment,” said Sen. John Fetterman, who chairs the Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research.

“Honestly, it shouldn’t be a conversation — it would be like asking the kids to pay for the school bus every morning or to pay for their own textbooks at school,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman and fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey  in June aiming to expand free or reduced-price meals access for kids. Part of the initiatives also call for amending the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools and school districts in low-income areas to offer free meal options to all students.

Fetterman also sponsored the Universal School Meals Program Act, an effort introduced by  last May, which would “provide free breakfast, lunch, and dinner to every student — without demanding they prove they are poor enough to deserve help getting three meals a day,” according to Sanders’  of the bill. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, introduced .

Subcommittee ranking member Mike Braun of Indiana said he introduced the  last July with Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown in an effort “to better prioritize and support the use of American food in school meal programs.”

That bipartisan bill would increase requirements for school meals to include U.S. products.

States a model

Crystal FitzSimons, interim president of the Food Research & Action Center, pointed out that eight states  that offer school meals to all students, regardless of one’s household income. Those states are California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Vermont.

The national nonprofit aims to reduce poverty-related hunger in the U.S. through research, advocacy and policy solutions.

“While those eight states are showing us what is possible, there are critical steps the subcommittee and Congress should take to enhance the reach and impact of school meals nationwide,” FitzSimons said.

As one piece of the puzzle, FitzSimons said Congress can “ensure that all children nationwide are hunger-free and ready to learn while they are at school by allowing all schools to offer meals to all their students at no charge” and the Universal School Meals Program Act “creates that path.”

Meg Bruening, professor and department head at Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Nutritional Sciences, said “the school meal programs in the U.S. provide a critical safety net for almost 30 million children with meals each year” — comprising 60% of children in the country.

Bruening said these school meal programs align closely with the , “ensuring a variety of healthy foods are offered to children while at school, where children spend most of their waking and eating hours.”

The guidelines, developed by the USDA and the Health and Human Services Department, are .

Summer EBT

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock underscored how child hunger increases in the summer months when kids lack access to regular meals at school.

Thirty-seven states, the District of Columbia and multiple territories and tribal nations opted in this year to a new effort, known as Summer EBT, to feed kids during the long summer months.

Also called Sun Bucks, the USDA initiative provides low-income families with school-aged children a grocery-buying benefit of $120 per child for the summer.

But 13 states,, chose not to participate in the program in 2024. The USDA said states have until Jan. 1 to submit a notice of intent if they plan to participate in the program next year. Iowa has to receive federal money for an alternative summer meal program.

Warnock said he hopes  on Summer EBT.

“Unfortunately, my home state — the state of Georgia — has not opted in to Sun Bucks, with some officials saying it does not result in higher nutritional outcomes for students, and that existing programs are ‘effective,’” he said.

“I heard our state leadership say: ‘We don’t need it,’” he added. “I’m still trying to figure out who this ‘we’ is — for whom are you speaking when you say: ‘We don’t need it?’”

A spokesperson for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has said the governor has concerns about the program’s dietary standards and cost.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

COLUMBIA — Just over $8 million meant to help families afford groceries went unused last month, according to state data.

Last August, the state Department of Social Services mailed nearly 537,000 debit cards loaded with money for groceries to families across the state. The money was part of a temporary federal program during the COVID-19 pandemic meant to help families buy groceries during the months when their children weren’t in school.

The last round of cards, which gave families $120 per child, expired in May, nine months after they were issued. Nearly 470,000 cards — 87.5% of those mailed — were activated, totaling $56.2 million.

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Whether families used up all of their allotment is unknown. DSS doesn’t track how much of a card is used once it’s activated. But with the cost of groceries, it’s expected that families who activated their card at all quickly used their total available.

Cards remain good nine months after they’re used for an initial purchase of any amount. That means the 1,300 people who first used the cards between April and May have until next January or February to use the remaining money before it, too, returns to the federal government.

The exact reasons 67,000 families did not use their cards at all are unknown. There could be several reasons a parent didn’t use the money, DSS officials and advocates have said.

Some cards may have been lost in the shuffle of other pandemic assistance, Sue Berkowitz, an advocate with Appleseed Legal Justice Center, said previously. Others may have thrown it out because they didn’t know what it was or that it was legitimate.

The social services and education departments tried to get the word out through news interviews and social media posts, agency spokespeople said.

Still other families may have intentionally discarded the aid. The cards went to the addresses listed for any student who qualifies to eat free or reduced-priced meals at school.

And the vast majority of schools statewide qualify for a federal program that allows all students to eat for free, regardless of their parents’ income. That means families who normally don’t qualify for any public assistance received the grocery debit cards anyway.

The cards sent out in August were the final of seven rounds of federal pandemic grocery aid.

In all, the state distributed 2.26 million cards between July 2020 and last August providing $1.04 billion for groceries. Parents used 90% of those cards at least once, according to DSS data.

While no complete database of states’ usage exists, South Carolina families seem to have used the money at a higher rate than other states. For instance, Missouri had about in unused grocery aid in February, and Louisiana had in April, just ahead of their cards’ expiration dates.

A new, permanent version of the program began in 35 states this summer. South Carolina was not among them after Gov. Henry McMaster declined to participate, pointing to that feed children over the summers.

Unlike the pandemic-era aid, which the federal government fully funded, the new program requires states to chip in half the administrative cost.

Democratic legislators for his decision, but that would have required him to sign on and asking Congress to extend the Jan. 1 deadline to sign up went nowhere.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com. Follow SC Daily Gazette on and .

Summer can be the hungriest time of the year for students who rely on free or reduced school meals and a new federal program is trying to help those families. 

Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (S-EBT) — also known as SUN Bucks — is a new grocery benefit program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will give families $120 per eligible student to buy groceries during the summer.

Ohio is that has opted into the SUN Bucks program.

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“We have a lot of Ohio children who rely on their school meals for their breakfasts and lunches, and in the summertime sometimes it’s very difficult for households to be able to provide meals,” said Brigette Hires, director of nutrition for the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. “This new Summer EBT has really helped to just have another safety net for households in the summertime to be able to provide nutritious meals for their families.”

The SUN Bucks program is estimated to help 840,000 Ohio students afford groceries during the summer and is the first new permanent federal nutrition program in more than 50 years.

“This program gives direct resources to families to be able to go to the store, and pick out the foods that are best for them and their families,” said Hope Lane-Gavin, director of nutrition policy and programs for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks.

Children should receive their one-time SUN Bucks payment of $120 by July 31. SUN Bucks will be added to current Ohio Direction Cards or will be mailed on a new card to eligible children.

“The distribution is happening a little bit later in the summer time than it will in subsequent summers,” Hires said. “It’s mostly just because in standing up a brand new program, there’s a lot of different processes that have to be put into place.”

Going forward, she anticipates the benefits will be distributed closer to the beginning of summer.

Eligible families who do not receive the Summer EBT benefits by July 31 should contact the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services at 1-866-244-0071.

Students who are eligible for SUN Bucks can also participate in other nutrition programs such or local food pantries.

“The programs are meant to work together to really help households provide nutritious meals for their children,” Hires said.

SUN Bucks allows families to decide what food they want to buy which comes in handy when being mindful of different cultures, food allergies and picky eaters.

“Kids are really picky,” Lane-Gavin said. “That’s the reality. Kids are picky, and that’s okay. They still need to eat.”

Who is eligible for SUN Bucks?

Many Ohio families will be automatically enrolled while others will need to apply at .

Eligible children who fall under these categories will automatically receive SUN Bucks and do not need to fill out an application:

• Children whose family receives SNAP or Ohio Works First benefits.
• Children receiving Medicaid that met the free and reduced-price lunch threshold during the previous school year.
• Children who were individually approved to receive free or reduced-price school meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) last school year.

These children may be eligible, but need to apply:

• Migrant children.
• Children who are experiencing homelessness.
• Children in families earning less than 185% of the federal poverty line based on their monthly income ( for a family of four).
• Children who receive free or reduced-price school meals but did not fill out a NSLP application.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

When summer nears, hundreds of thousands of kids in Washington can face three months without free meals provided by their schools.

“There’s this huge gap, and it affects learning,” Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said.

But starting this summer, a new federal program will help lower-income families who rely on free school breakfasts and lunches.

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is similar to a program that helped feed families during the pandemic. With a push from Murray, a permanent version of the program was approved federally in 2022 and is set to launch in Washington this summer, thanks to some new funding from the state Legislature.

It will provide families with a $120 preloaded card usable at grocery stores and farmers markets. The cards will be issued to families between mid-June and the end of August, but the exact dates that a child may receive their benefits will vary, according to state officials.

Children whose families are up to 185% of the federal poverty line – – can qualify. about 550,000 kids in Washington will be eligible.

Most of the funding comes from the federal government. But during this year’s session, the state Legislature set aside $12 million over the next two years to fund a portion of the program. The plan for the state program, which will be run by the Department of Social and Health Services and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, was approved by the federal government last week.

Most children who already receive , Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits, or a free or reduced school lunch are automatically eligible for the program and won’t need to reapply, said Norah West, spokesperson for the Department of Social and Health Services.

West encouraged families who are eligible but have not applied for free or reduced school meals to do so before the end of the school year if they want access to the summer program.

Families who do not qualify for the other programs can still apply for the summer assistance. Details will be released in the coming weeks on how to do that.

West said exact dates for when children will get their benefits will be released soon, and families should check the state’s regularly to learn more.

Once a family is approved, they will get the card within seven to 10 days. Unused benefits will expire 122 days after they are issued.

The summer program is just a piece of a broader conversation lawmakers are having about ensuring kids get enough to eat. State legislators have tried in recent years to provide free school meals for all children, but proposals to do so have failed.

On a federal level, Murray said she is continuing to raise awareness about the broader effects of nutrition on children’s learning abilities and well-being.

“The stress on families is incredible,” Murray told the Standard in February. “It just seems to me that in the United States of America, that’s something that our families should not have to worry about.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

School meals are critical to child health. Research has shown that than meals from other sources, such as meals brought from home.

A recent study that one of us conducted found the quality of school meals has steadily improved, especially since the 2010 strengthened nutrition standards for school meals. In fact, by 2017, another study found that school meals provided the of any major U.S. food source.

Many American families became familiar with universal free school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. To ease the financial and logistical burdens of the pandemic on families and schools, the that allowed schools nationwide to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. However, these by the 2022-23 school year.

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Since that time, there has been a substantial increase in schools participating in the , a federal policy that allows schools in high poverty areas to provide free breakfast and lunch to all attending students. The policy became available as an option for low-income schools nationwide in 2014 and was part of the . By the 2022-23 school year, had adopted the Community Eligibility Provision, an increase of more than 20% over the prior year.

We are study the health effects of nutrition-related policies, particularly those that alleviate poverty. Our newly published research found that the Community Eligibility Provision was associated with a net .

Improving the health of American children

President Harry Truman in 1946, with the stated goal of protecting the health and well-being of American children. The program established permanent federal funding for school lunches, and participating schools were required to provide free or reduced-price lunches to children from qualifying households. Eligibility is based on federal poverty levels, both of which are .

In 1966, the piloted the , which provides free, reduced-price and full-price breakfasts to students. This program was later made permanent through an amendment in 1975.

The was piloted in several states beginning in 2011 and became an option for eligible schools nationwide beginning in 2014. It operates through the national school lunch and school breakfast programs and expands on these programs.

The policy allows all students in a school to receive free breakfast and lunch, rather than determine eligibility by individual households. Entire schools or school districts are eligible for free lunches if at least 40% of their students are directly certified to receive free meals, meaning their household participated in a means-based safety net program, such as the , or the child is identified as runaway, homeless, in foster care or enrolled in Head Start. Some states also .

The Community Eligibility Provision increases school meal participation by associated with receiving free meals, eliminating the need to complete and process applications and extending access to students in households with incomes above the eligibility threshold for free meals. As of 2023, the eligibility threshold for free meals is 130% of the federal poverty level, which amounts to US$39,000 for a family of four.

Universal free meals and obesity

We analyzed whether providing universal free meals at school through the Community Eligibility Provision was associated with lower childhood obesity before the COVID-19 pandemic.

To do this, we measured from 2013 to 2019 among 3,531 low-income California schools. We used over 3.5 million body mass index measurements of students in fifth, seventh and ninth grade that were taken annually and aggregated at the school level. To ensure rigorous results, we between schools that adopted the policy and eligible schools that did not. We also followed the same schools over time, comparing obesity prevalence before and after the policy.

We found that schools participating in the Community Eligibility Provision had a in obesity prevalence compared with eligible schools that did not participate in the provision. Although our findings are modest, even small improvements in obesity levels are notable because effective strategies to reduce obesity at a population level . Additionally, because obesity racially and ethnically marginalized and low-income children, this policy could contribute to reducing health disparities.

The Community Eligibility Provision likely reduces obesity prevalence by substituting up to half of a child’s weekly diet with healthier options and simultaneously for low-to-middle-income families. Families receiving free breakfast and lunch save approximately $4.70 per day per child, or $850 per year. For low-income families, particularly those with multiple school-age children, this could result in meaningful savings that families can use for other health-promoting goods or services.

Expanding access to school meals

Childhood obesity the past several decades. Obesity often to a range of .

Growing research is showing the benefits of universal free school meals for the health and well-being of children. Along with our study of California schools, other researchers have found an association between universal free school meals and reduced obesity in , and , as well as among and school districts in .

Studies have also linked the Community Eligibility Provision to and .

While our research observed a reduction in the prevalence of obesity among schools participating in the Community Eligibility Provision relative to schools that did not, obesity increased over time in both groups, with a greater increase among nonparticipating schools.

Universal free meals policies may slow the rise in childhood obesity rates, but they alone will not be sufficient to reverse these trends. Alongside universal free meals, identifying to reduce obesity among children is necessary to address this public health issue.

As of 2023, universal free school meals policies. States such as California, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and New Mexico have pledged to cover the difference between school meal expenditures and federal reimbursements. As more states adopt their own universal free meals policies, understanding their effects on child health and well-being, as well as barriers and supports to successfully implementing these programs, will be critical.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

As New Jersey students returned to classrooms this week, the number of them eligible for free or reduced school breakfast and lunch jumped — and hunger insecurity advocates are eyeing ways to make those meals free for all children.

“We are hopeful — since New Jersey has done so much and really led the way in addressing hunger and food insecurity — that in this next legislative session, they can get a school-meals-for-all bill passed,” said Lisa Pitz of Hunger Free New Jersey.

About 26,000 new students  program this school year thanks to a bill Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law last September. That’s in addition to the more than who received free or reduced breakfast and lunch between 2019 and 2020, the most recently available data.

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The law, known as the Working Class Families’ Anti-Hunger Act, expanded eligibility to families who earn 200% of the federal poverty level. That translates to households with three children earning $46,060 maximum, or for those with two children, $36,620.

It also requires all school districts to provide a free school breakfast and lunch program and to publicize its availability to their communities.

While experts applauded the new law, signed soon after pandemic-era  providing free lunches expired, nutrition experts and food hunger advocates want to see more action from state lawmakers.

“There’s definitely interest at the state level in going for a universal meals program for the state. It’s just a matter of getting everyone on board and finding the will to do it,” said Sal Valenza, public policy chair for the New Jersey School Nutrition Association.

The Assembly passed a bill () in June that would further expand eligibility for free and reduced school meals for the 2024-25 school year. The bill would also require the creation of a task force that would study school food security issues and recommend state- and federal-level action.

A spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex), a prime sponsor of the legislation, said he believes every child should have access to meals at school, and the bill advanced in June will “put New Jersey on the path to accomplish that goal.”

The bill still needs to advance in the state Senate, where it has yet to be heard in committee. It is expected to cost the state about $57 million.

that would phase in free school lunches for all students by 2028 advanced out of an Assembly committee in June but did not win full approval before the Legislature went on its summer recess. Under that bill, which is estimated to cost the state more than $500 million after it’s phased in, New Jersey would join a handful of other states to provide free school meals for all students.  Massachusetts officials made school lunches available to all public school students regardless of income level.

But New Jersey would be an outlier by using the phase-in approach, noted Pitz.

“Really, the time to act on this is now,” she said. “We don’t ask our kids to pay for their textbooks or when they take the bus. School meals should just be part of their school day so that all kids can learn and grow to their full potential.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

In North Carolina’s push to curb childhood hunger, schools will provide locally sourced food to millions of youth this summer.

The North Carolina summer nutrition program offers free meals to kids and teenagers under the age of 18. Administered by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the program typically takes place in “economically distressed areas” so that they can serve the most food-insecure students. While students receive meals in school, once the academic year ends, they might not have enough food at home.

According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, 1.2 million people experience food insecurity — 394,000 of them children.

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The support comes in lieu of the dwindling resources from the federal COVID-19 public health emergency.

NCDPI calls on sponsors of the summer meal program to participate in the . This includes serving locally sourced foods, connecting farmers with communities to learn about agriculture and nutrition, and hosting cooking classes.

The public will be able to access food from schools, public housing centers, playgrounds, camps, parks, medical centers, faith-based facilities, and libraries. Providers also offer fitness activities for children and their general communities.

In a press release, State Superintendent Catherine Truitt expressed concerns about acquiring community sponsors.

“Our goal is to increase the number of community sponsors that can partner with us to help provide reimbursable meals to food-insecure children,” Truitt said. “School and summer meals provide students with essential nutrition for growth, development, and learning. Participation in school and Summer Nutrition Programs also provide educational enrichment and support social-emotional learning.”

More families might rely on summer meal programs as the resources from the P-EBT program subside. P-EBT is a temporary service that distributes food assistance benefits to eligible families during the COVID-19 public health emergency, which ended on May 11.

Eligible children and teens who attended school in person during the school year will receive a one-time benefits payment over the summer if they applied by the end of May.

NCDHHS aims to reduce the food insecurity rate from its current 10.9% to 10% by December 2024.

Statewide, there is a push to get more citizens food and nutrition services and to increase participation in the Special Supplemental nutrition program for women and children. They also want to get more community-based organizations involved and increase breastfeeding support services.

These strategies are outlined in the .

“We often take for granted the healthy and nutritious food we keep in our refrigerators and pantries — but many families struggle to put food on the table every day,” said NCDHHS Chief Deputy Secretary for Opportunity and Well-Being Susan Gale Perry. “Our goal with this plan is to ensure everyone can get the food and nutrition they need to thrive, and fewer North Carolinians experience hunger.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com. Follow NC Newsline on and .

The lion’s share of Hoosier schools that qualify for don’t take advantage of it, according to a new national report.

Across the country, 6,419 school districts — 67.5 percent of those eligible — adopted the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) in one or more schools for the 2022– 2023 school year, the (FRAC) reported in a .

But in Indiana, only 40.6% of eligible school districts — and 51.7% of eligible schools overall —  adopted CEP in the most recent academic year.

Although Indiana was among the 39 states that saw an increase in the number of schools adopting community eligibility, the Hoosier state still ranks 47th in the nation for CEP participation.

The program allows schools with high poverty rates to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of their economic status. Child health advocates and education experts laud the federal provision as a benefit to both students and school administrators.

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No Kid Hungry, a non-profit organization that focuses on increasing access to healthy meals for children and alleviating childhood hunger, emphasized that kids are more attentive in class, have better attendance and are less likely to have disciplinary problems when their nutritional needs are met.

With CEP, families with tight food budgets are also ensured that their child is getting two balanced meals at school, reducing financial strain at home.

The program works for schools, as well, by eliminating school meals applications and unpaid meal charges that often create administrative burdens.

Some schools have recently adopted CEP as a way to continue offering healthy meals to all students — free of charge — after the expiration of the pandemic child nutrition waivers last year, according to FRAC.

But researchers said that many schools, including some in Indiana, choose not to participate out of fear that losing data from school meal applications may also result in the loss of Title 1 funding.

Indiana schools and districts have until June 30 to submit a CEP application for the 2023-24 school year. It’s not clear how many new applications have been submitted so far.

By the numbers

During the 2022–23 school year, there was a significant increase in the number of schools and districts nationwide participating in community eligibility, according to FRAC’s latest report.

While the number of participating schools in Indiana increased, too, the take-up rate among eligible schools overall decreased slightly.

Of the 1,148 schools eligible for CEP in the last school year, 593 participated, according to federal data collected by FARC. That’s up from 506 participating schools in the 2021-22 academic year, when 957 schools qualified.

Among those to join were in Indianapolis, which serves nearly 11,000 students.

Of the 469 eligible Indiana schools where more than 60% of students qualify as high-need under CEP guidelines, 311 participated in the federal program in the 2022-23 school year — a 66.3% adoption rate.

About 52% of Hoosier schools with 50-60% high-need students — 200 of the 356 eligible schools — signed up. Participation dropped to 24.5% for those schools with high-need student enrollment at or below 50%; of the 323 schools that were eligible, only 77 took advantage of the program.

The Indiana Department of Education estimates that at least 1,100 schools will qualify for CEP in the 2023-24 academic year.

How CEP works — and why it helps

Families are not required to submit an application for the community provision like they would for the free and reduced meals program. That guarantees free breakfast and lunch for any student at a participating school.

Indianapolis Public Schools, as well as the surrounding Perry, Warren and Wayne school districts, are continuing to offer free meals – both lunches and breakfasts – to students through CEP for the 2023-24 school year. Certain MSD of Lawrence Township schools are also participating in CEP to provide free meals.

Thousands of students at other Indianapolis-area schools — in the Decatur, Franklin, Speedway and Washington school districts — will not automatically get free food, though.

Some district officials they do not participate in CEP because of the federal program’s “complexity,” while others noted that their schools do not qualify for complete meal reimbursement, meaning districts have to pay out-of-pocket to cover the rest.

For a school to qualify for the CEP, at least 40% of the individual school’s enrolled population must already participate in another means-tested program or are part of a protected group, such as students experiencing homelessness, in foster care, or migrant students.

Schools that meet the minimum threshold to qualify for the community provision receive reimbursement for 62.5% of meals served, according to federal guidelines. Schools with enrolled populations over 62.5%, where nearly two-thirds of students fall into the above categories, get fully reimbursed for students’ meals.

Schools with higher numbers of students in need receive a near or total reimbursement for meals, which makes community eligibility a more financially viable option. That also makes them more likely to participate in community eligibility, according to FRAC.

While any school with an enrolled population of 40% or more can participate, many schools on the lower end of the scale “fear participating” because the level of reimbursement from the federal government would not fully cover the cost of all meals served to students, said Allyson PĂ©rez, a child nutrition policy analyst with FRAC.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on and .