Updated: Two federal judges issued preliminary rulings Oct. 31, ordering President Donald Trump’s administration to continue to fund SNAP using contingency funds during the government shutdown, the Associated Press reported. Judges ordered the Trump administration, which has argued the funds are inadequate and cannot be spent, to provide an update on how it will proceed. It’s unclear when the debit cards beneficiaries use to buy groceries will be reloaded.
Schools and community organizations are scrambling to prepare as federal funding for SNAP food assistance is set to lapse Nov. 1, leaving students from low-income families, and some staff members, vulnerable to hunger.
About 44 million people in 22 million households rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is also called food stamps, federal data show. Because about 39% of those recipients are children, schools, particularly those in high-poverty areas, expect they will quickly see the effects of a missed payment.
“I think I was shocked that this is actually happening,” said Mallory DePrekel, the CEO of Communities in Schools of Michigan, an organization that provides wraparound services, including nutrition support, in schools. “We’re dipping into our rainy day funds, and we seem to have had a lot of rainy days recently.”
The unprecedented lapse in SNAP funding comes as schools increasingly coordinate with organizations like free clinics, food banks, and volunteer groups to help address their students’ non-academic needs, which can become a barrier to engagement in school. Educators say that, over the past two decades, schools have increasingly felt the weight of addressing societal problems that profoundly affect their students, like community violence, hunger, and a lack of family support.
As the government shutdown nears the one-month mark, the Trump administration has said SNAP recipients will see the first missed disbursement in November, but Democrats and anti-hunger organizations argue the U.S. Department of Agriculture could tap emergency aid to keep the program running until Congress reaches a resolution.
Wherever the blame lies, schools are preparing for the fallout.
Schools rush to prepare for SNAP funding cliff
This week, district leaders across the country coordinated with local food banks to provide additional food on-site to families in need. They prepared school social workers for an uptick in food requests. They worked with parent groups to set up food drives and fundraisers. And some made emergency communications plans to connect families with community resources.
“Families deserve support, especially during times of change,” said a website created by the Fresno Unified district in California, which links to a calendar of community food distribution sites and lists schools where children under 18 can get a free after-school “super snack.”
In Kansas City, Mo., alumni of Northeast High School, many who graduated decades ago, rushed to restock an on-site pantry there that serves about 1,400 students, local news station KSHB reported.
“I worry every night, and that’s why I’m up at 3 a.m.,” said Roberta Holt-Kipper, a 1969 graduate who created the pantry.
Communities in Schools of Michigan’s case managers work in 62 schools, supporting vulnerable students one-on-one and connecting their families with resources like tutoring and groceries. This week, the organization turned to donors and raised $50,000 for additional food supplies in November.
“If you’re hungry, you’re cranky,” said DePrekel, the CEO. “If you’re cranky, you’re disruptive. You can’t learn, and the rest of the kids in your class can’t learn.”
Another Communities in Schools affiliate in Tarrant County, Texas, opened a new headquarters stocked with perishable and shelf-stable foods provided by a regional food pantry earlier this year. The organization’s social workers, who work in 11 local districts, can request emergency food assistance, and volunteers will drive supplies to their schools. Communities in Schools of Tarrant County has raised $4,000 for additional emergency supplies so far, and the work continues, President and CEO Lindsey Garner said.
“Students have to have somebody to walk alongside them and help them overcome the obstacles, and schools alone are not equipped to do that,” Garner said.
School lunch funding expected to continue
Even if families struggle to buy groceries outside of school, most students will still receive free or reduced-price meals during the school day if their families qualify.
Additionally, eight states have their own universal free school meal policies, which cover all students, regardless of family income. And schools around the country are enrolled in community eligibility, a federal program that allows them to serve free meals to all students if 25% of their enrollment automatically qualifies by participating in qualifying federal assistance programs, like Medicaid or SNAP benefits.
The School Nutrition Association, which represents cafeteria directors around the country, expects schools to receive reimbursements in November for meals they served in October without an interruption in operations, spokesperson Diane Pratt-Heavner said.
Still, even students who eat well at school may experience hunger at home. And the stress of seeing their families face uncertainty is detrimental to learning, DePrekel said.
Concerns about the lapse aren’t just limited to students, she noted. It’s likely that many school employees, like lower-paid classroom aides, qualify for SNAP as well. In a 2022 survey of 3,481 paraprofessionals, classroom assistants, and school teaching assistants conducted by the EdWeek Research Center, 19% of respondents said they’d visited a food pantry and 16% said they had qualified for food stamps.
Communities in Schools of Michigan has worked to pay all of its workers a living wage, but some school social workers support large families and may lose SNAP benefits themselves, so DePrekel announced Thursday plans to match October SNAP benefits statements for all of her employees who don’t receive them in November at a total cost of $10,000 to $15,000.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime situation, but I’ve been in my role for seven years, and we’ve had a bunch of once-in-a-lifetime situations,” DePrekel said.
On Thursday, the National School Boards Association urged Congress to resolve the impasse and end the shutdown.
“We are deeply concerned that more children will go home to empty pantries and go to bed hungry,” CEO and Executive Director Verjeana McCotter-Jacobs said in a statement. “Schools are doing everything they can to provide safe, stable environments where students can learn and thrive—but they cannot do it alone.”
