Student Well-Being

Congressional Democrats Push to Expand Access to Free School Meals

By Libby Stanford — July 27, 2022 4 min read
Image of students in line for a school meal.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Congressional Democrats once again are turning up the heat on efforts to expand school meal access even as districts prepare for a new year without universal free school meals.

Last week, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., introduced the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act, an effort to reauthorize U.S. Department of Agriculture child nutrition programs. The bill would expand access to free school meals, provide more money in meal reimbursements to schools, and tackle food insecurity in the summer.

“Unfortunately, Congress has not reauthorized federal child nutrition programs in seven years, and as communities see higher rates of food insecurity and families face higher costs, Congress must deliver the evidence-based, comprehensive legislation that children and families need,” Scott said during a U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee markup on the bill Wednesday.

The bill is the latest legislative effort to address expiring USDA nutrition waivers that allowed all students to eat for free regardless of income. Here’s what educators need to know about the bill and other efforts to combat hunger as schools approach the 2022-23 year.

Expanding affordable meals to more students—and in summer

If passed, the bill would give more schools the opportunity to offer free meals through the Community Eligibility Provision of federal law, a USDA program that allows entire schools or clusters of schools to offer free meals if 40 percent or more of the school population is eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

The bill would lower the threshold to 25 percent and allow states to elect the provision statewide. It would also expand summer food service by reducing the eligibility threshold for summer meals to 40 percent from 50 percent of students in the area qualifying for free or reduced-price meals.

The bill would also increase school lunch reimbursement rates from 10.5 cents per meal to 20.5 cents per meal and authorize $35 million per year from fiscal 2024 through fiscal 2028 so that schools can purchase kitchen equipment and improve lunchroom infrastructure.

House Democrats say the measures would go a long way in combatting food insecurity. In 2018, more than 2.7 million households with children did not have reliable access to nutritious food, according to a USDA household food security report. The pandemic has only exacerbated food inequality with Black and Hispanic households with children reporting food insecurity rates that were double those of white households with children, according to a May 2020 report from the Urban Institute.

How the expanded meal waivers were created

The bill is the latest in a string of efforts to prepare school nutrition departments for the upcoming school year after the USDA’s pandemic-era meal waivers expired on June 30. Those waivers, introduced in 2020, gave schools more flexibility to respond to the pandemic by allowing them to serve meals to-go, offering higher reimbursement rates to offset inflation costs, and giving all students access to free school meal programs regardless of income.

An effort to include the waivers in President Joe Biden’s $1.5 trillion spending package failed in March. Last month, Biden signed the Keep Kids Fed Act, a bipartisan effort to extend the waivers that allowed for meal flexibility and reimbursement rates that are 40 cents higher for lunch and 15 cents higher for breakfast than what districts receive normally.

The Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act has received widespread support from child and school nutrition advocates. In a news release, the School Nutrition Association said the bill includes “long-term solutions and critical support for school meal programs and students.”

Republicans say the free meal expansion would be a ‘burden’

During the Wednesday committee hearing, a handful of Republican lawmakers argued the bill would be an unnecessary burden on taxpayers and school nutrition workers.

“Instead of funding targeted, need-based programs, this bill will create bloated and extraneous programs at the expense of taxpayers,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said at Wednesday’s markup. “Spending more is not the way to ensure these programs are meeting the intended purpose of feeding kids in need.”

Republicans also argued that the bill is poorly timed because schools still haven’t recovered from the pandemic and have been unable to evaluate how typical nutrition programs are operating.

“Our schools are just starting to get back to regular order,” Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, said. “We should wait to see how these programs operate before changing them.”

In a separate development, a group of over 20 Republican attorneys general this week filed a federal lawsuit against the USDA, contesting its interpretation of Title IX law as preventing LGBTQ-related discrimination in school meal programs.

The Agriculture Department’s announcement came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that gender identity and sexual orientation constituted sex discrimination in employment law. The case was Bostock v. Clayton County.

The USDA ordered all state and local agencies and program operators that receive Food and Nutrition Service funds to investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and to update non-discrimination policies to reflect gender identity and sexual orientation.

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argued that the USDA’s directive “misconstrue the law and impose unlawful requirements.”

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Personalized Learning Webinar
Personalized Learning in the STEM Classroom
Unlock the power of personalized learning in STEM! Join our webinar to learn how to create engaging, student-centered classrooms.
Content provided by Project Lead The Way
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Student Well-Being Webinar
Students Speak, Schools Thrive: The Impact of Student Voice Data on Achievement
Research shows that when students feel heard, their outcomes improve. Join us to learn how to capture student voice data & create positive change in your district.
Content provided by Panorama Education
School & District Management Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: How Can We ‘Disagree Better’? A Roadmap for Educators
Experts in conflict resolution, psychology, and leadership skills offer K-12 leaders skills to avoid conflict in challenging circumstances.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Student Well-Being How Free School Meals Became an Issue Animating the 2024 Election
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has highlighted his state's law to provide free school meals to all students as he campaigns for vice president.
6 min read
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gets a huge hug from students at Webster Elementary after he signed into law a bill that guarantees free school meals, (breakfast and lunch) for every student in Minnesota's public and charter schools in Minneapolis, on March 17, 2023.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gets a hug from students at Webster Elementary School in Minneapolis on March 17, 2023, after he signed into law a bill that guarantees free school meals for every student in Minnesota's public and charter schools. Free school meals have become a campaign issue since Walz was named Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate on the Democratic ticket.
Elizabeth Flores/Minneapolis Star Tribune via TNS
Student Well-Being Teen Substance Use Is Declining, But More Dangerous Drug Abuse Is Emerging
There are rising concerns about teens' access to more lethal drugs such as fentanyl.
3 min read
Person being helped from a pill bottle by a healthcare provider
iStock/Getty
Student Well-Being Interactive How Gen Z Feels About Life and the Future, in Charts
In a new survey, what Gen Z students plan to do after high school has a lot to do with how they feel about their lives and their futures.
3 min read
Illustration from the perspective of a person's feet on a single path with multiple pathways in front of them leading to different doors.
iStock/Getty
Student Well-Being Opinion Why Cellphone Bans Aren't the Cure for Student Anxiety
Simple solutions can’t solve a complex problem. Here’s what we need to do instead.
Tom Moore
5 min read
A silhouette figure looks at their phone, glitch neon transparent effect action stance photo over subtle motherboard maze
iStock/Getty + Education Week