The U.S. Department of Agriculture will continue reimbursing schools and childcare centers for free meals to all students regardless of their income through the 2021-22 school year, USDA officials announced Tuesday.
Meal service waivers such as the “Seamless Summer Option,” which made it possible for California districts to distribute millions of grab-and-go meals to students since campuses closed due to Covid-19, will be extended through June 2022, according to a USDA news release. Advocates say the extension comes at a pivotal time for food-insecure families.
What impact will the state’s new universal school meals program have on schools and children?
“At a time when millions of families continue to face financial strain, hunger and hardship, these waivers allow schools to reach more kids with the food they need,” said Lisa Davis, senior vice president of national child hunger organization Share Our Strength. “With them, schools are able to cut through red tape and allow kids to eat for free.”
In addition to the flexibility of not having to check students’ income eligibility for free meals, districts are able to set up flexible meal times based on student schedules and needs. Districts can also serve meals to students outside normal school hours and deliver meals to students’ homes or other places instead of requiring them to pick up food at schools.
“States and districts wanted waivers extended to plan for safe reopening in the fall; USDA answered the call to help America’s schools and childcare institutions serve high quality meals while being responsive to their local needs as children safely return to their regular routines,” USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release. “This action also increases the reimbursement rate to school meal operators so they can serve healthy foods to our kids. It’s a win-win for kids, parents and schools.”
Typically, districts are only reimbursed for free meals served to students who qualify for and participate in the USDA’s National School Lunch Program. Statewide, 3.9 million students, 63% of California’s student body, participated in the program in the 2019-2020 school year.
But some district officials and child hunger experts say the number of families in need of food assistance both in the East Bay and throughout the state is actually much higher. That’s because many families avoid the National School Lunch Program’s application process out of embarrassment or privacy concerns.
Not having to check students’ eligibility made serving grab-and-go meals during the pandemic much easier for districts like Fresno Unified School District, which served around 20,000 meals a day during the summer of 2020, Chief Operations Officer Karin Temple said.
Davis, of Share our Strength, said extending the waivers now gives schools time to appropriately plan and budget for next year’s meal programs, so they can operate “effectively, efficiently and with the stability needed to support local economies.”
Advocates are pushing at the state and federal level to make universal free meals a permanent fixture at schools. State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, introduced SB 364 last month, which would ensure free meals for all students starting in the 2022-23 school year. The bill was heard by the Senate’s Human Services Committee Tuesday afternoon.
“When Oakland Unified School District offered free meals, our participation numbers increased, providing much needed revenue,” said Oakland Unified superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell in a statement supporting SB 364. “More importantly, families from all income groups told us they have come to rely on these meals as a reliable source of nutrition for their kids.”
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My 2 girls opted to continue with Cyber schooling through our School District for the 2021-22 school year. They always qualified for free breakfast and lunch. Since they didn’t attend the brick and mortar school, are they eligible for some type of food stamp benefit similar to the PA EBT given last year?
I’m an elementary school head cook and this program needs to stop. I see more wasted/thrown away food than ever before. Just ridiculous
These no cost breakfast and lunches need to stop, I’m a head cook in an elementary school and see more and more food getting thrown away every day. Put the old system back in place.
I hope they discontinue free lunch and only allow it for low income. My son should not get free lunch. He eats multiple snacks and lunches at school. I can’t stop him and he just goes through the lunch line multiple times. We are fighting childhood obesity and trying to develop healthy eating habits. This programs is making my kid obese.
I worked for a school district serving meals during Covid and the government paid for many more meals than were served to kids. If 300 meals were made, that’s is what was counted as serve even if only 200 were actually given out. Meals were not kept by names etc. but by a mark on a paper that was counted later. Meal counts soared by sometimes not because the kids were getting them sadly.
I am retired and being taxed into poverty. No one seems concerned about the elderly having enough to eat. Stop giving handouts to some and not all. Stop putting the burden on the taxpayer to support others. Stop wasting tax dollars.
Why is my student who is in half day kindergarten not getting the free breakfast and lunch that was extended to the end of 2022?
Thank you.
It’s a blessing for all children, meals are a great way to communicate to all children food is important and let no children go hungry or feel at odds no matter what financial situation or status their family may be experiencing. Applaud this loudly and clearly.
The first sentence in the article is incorrect in that child care centers are not receiving free meals like schools. Family day care home providers and at-risk afterschool programs will receive free meals from 7/1/2021-6/30/2022, but day care centers have slipped through the cracks.
People wanted religion taken out of the schools and they did.
Cant say Merry Christmas any more, have to say Happy Holidays.
Guess you shouldn’t complain about not having a kosher meal available.
Does every child in the U.S. receive free lunch and breakfast according to the extension passed in April for the 2021-2022 school year?
What happened to parents being responsible for feeding their own kids?
This is a good initiative but let me tell you Muslim and Jewish kids are sufferings from lack of meals in their school. Public schools will get reimbursed on meals purchased not actually used. To what extent the state will follow the consumed food vs the waisted? My children attend Methuen public schools and can’t purchase a single meal that is HALAL or KOSHER. This problem is never resolved. We are now seeing more support … Read More
This is a good initiative but let me tell you Muslim and Jewish kids are sufferings from lack of meals in their school. Public schools will get reimbursed on meals purchased not actually used. To what extent the state will follow the consumed food vs the waisted? My children attend Methuen public schools and can’t purchase a single meal that is HALAL or KOSHER. This problem is never resolved. We are now seeing more support to schools who doesn’t care about religious meal practices. these kids are left behind.
I urging the state to act and consider religious backgrounds by having Halal meals available.
What I think it can be done for these students is that the state should refund them directly or issue them a prepaid cards so they purchase the food they can eat from other places.
Thank you for giving me a chance to raise my concern.
Every other first world country serves lunch and snacks to all their school children every day, and some also serve breakfast. When we tried, we were never able to get an estimate of the total cost of (local, state and federal) administration and regulatory compliance and compare that to the cost of just serving healthy meals to all American children. What could be more of a clear investment in the future than better nutrition … Read More
Every other first world country serves lunch and snacks to all their school children every day, and some also serve breakfast. When we tried, we were never able to get an estimate of the total cost of (local, state and federal) administration and regulatory compliance and compare that to the cost of just serving healthy meals to all American children.
What could be more of a clear investment in the future than better nutrition that leads to better health and better learning? During my years advocating for school-based nutrition programs as a school board member, I spent way too much time arguing about proposals to cut federal funding for nutrition and to try to deny food to school children. What can be more of a good thing than feeding children? What could be more of a clear change in our priorities than to stop “investigating” families that need food for their children? It’s time to end child hunger in America. It’s time.
I would agree with ” families from all income groups coming to rely on free meals as a reliable source of nutrition for their kids,” having personally experienced and relied on these grab-and-go stations. They made it as easy as possible. With no regulations or hesitations, I loved and appreciated how fast it would take. But I have to say that I have not experienced that easiness since around September 2020. When classes started, that … Read More
I would agree with ” families from all income groups coming to rely on free meals as a reliable source of nutrition for their kids,” having personally experienced and relied on these grab-and-go stations. They made it as easy as possible. With no regulations or hesitations, I loved and appreciated how fast it would take.
But I have to say that I have not experienced that easiness since around September 2020. When classes started, that had changed to only kids that were attending that school which has made it really hard because only LAUSD schools have the grab-and-go stations. That has made me stop going due to the charters not offering that until later on in the year. If there’s anything that this pandemic has showed me is that these charter schools operate more like a corporation that is trying to stay upfloat, avoiding from filing for bankruptcy.
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