Dive Brief:
- School breakfast and lunch participation each increased by 6% during the 2022-23 school year when compared to pre-pandemic levels among the five states that implemented universal school meal policies at that time, according to a recent report by the Food Research & Action Center. Those states are California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada and Vermont.
- Four of the five states saw breakfast participation rise, with a total of 129,264 additional students receiving free breakfast in 2022-23 compared to 2018-19, FRAC found. Lunch participation, however, increased across all five states, with schools providing lunch to a total of 233,656 more students in the same time period.
- FRAC, a nonprofit research center that advocates for universal school meal policies, advises state legislators to continue passing universal meal laws until Congress supports federal legislation enabling schools to serve free meals to all students, regardless of their families' income.
Dive Insight:
FRAC’s report highlights early benefits of universal school meal policies as the model has gained momentum in state legislatures in recent years.
So far, FRAC reports that eight states passed such laws after a pandemic-era Congressional waiver that provided free school meals nationwide expired in June 2022.
Since its expiration, districts and families have taken on more debt for unpaid school meals. School nutrition directors, for instance, are continuing to report increasing cafeteria costs and ongoing issues with meal debt, according to a January School Nutrition Association survey. As of fall 2023, SNA said 808 districts accrued a total of $17.73 million in meal debt, with the median debt from unpaid meals rising 5.8% between 2022 and 2023.
Several bills supporting universal school meals nationwide or increasing federal funding for Community Eligibility Provision schools have stalled in Congress over the past year. The Community Eligibility Provision is a federal reimbursement program that allows all students in a district to receive free meals without requiring families to fill out applications
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, however, did expand free school meal access to high-poverty schools in a final rule released in September. The ruling opened up another 3,000 eligible school districts to opt into the Community Eligibility Provision.
While the FRAC report acknowledged that the USDA’s latest move expands access for high-poverty schools to tap into the Community Eligibility Provision, it noted that the federal reimbursement rate within that program must be increased by Congress so it’s possible for more eligible schools to participate.
