School Nutrition Programs Targeted by House Budget Resolution
Major changes are proposed to the program that allows schools to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The budget resolution passed by the House of Representatives last month calls for “unprecedented” cuts to school meal programs, which would have a “traumatic” effect on communities, advocates say.
The budget bill—which Congressional Republicans are urging the Senate to take up quickly—instructs the Education and Workforce Committee to cut $330 billion in spending.
“These proposed cuts are unprecedented,” said Carolyn Vega, associate director of policy analysis for No Kid Hungry, a national campaign to solve problems of hunger and poverty in the United States. “This level of cuts is far beyond what has been proposed in the past.”
No Kid Hungry hosted a virtual town hall last week on the potential impacts of the recommended cuts, which Lydia Rivera, an upstate New York-based single mother who depends on free school meals and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help feed her children, said would be “traumatic” for her family and community.
Like Rivera’s children, many children in the Fredericksburg area receive free breakfast and lunch at school through the Community Eligibility Provision, which is targeted for cuts in the budget bill.
The Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, allows schools and districts to serve free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students without collecting household applications if a certain percentage of students are eligible for free meals based on their participation in SNAP or other programs.
Participating in the CEP reduces the administrative burden on school divisions and families of collecting and verifying eligibility, eliminates stigma for students who rely on free meals, and reduces school meal debt, said Nichole Taylor, food service supervisor for Pennsylvania’s Great Valley School District and the School Nutrition Association’s public policy and legislation chair, during last week’s town hall.
When CEP was implemented in 2010, schools and school districts were eligible to participate if 40% or more of all students were eligible for free meals. This eligibility rate, known as the Identified Student Percentage or ISP, was lowered to 25% in 2023.
The proposal in the current budget bill is to raise the ISP to 60%, which would have “a huge impact on school districts,” Taylor said.
Currently, all school divisions in the Fredericksburg area are eligible to participate in CEP. Fredericksburg City Public Schools and Caroline County Public Schools participate division-wide, meaning every student at every school in these divisions receive free breakfast and lunch.
According to data from the 2023-24 school year collected by the Virginia Department of Education, 58% of Fredericksburg students and 50% of Caroline students are eligible for free meals.
About 32.5% of all enrolled Stafford County students are eligible for free meals, and among the nine schools that participate in CEP—Moncure, Anthony Burns, Falmouth, Kate Waller Barrett, Rocky Run, and Widewater elementary schools, Drew Middle School, and Rising Star and North Star early childhood centers—eligibility is between 38% and 58%.
In Spotsylvania, 39% of all students are eligible for free meals. Twenty-four of the division’s 30 schools participate in CEP and many of these have ISPs of 40% and greater.
In King George, 33% of students are eligible. King George Elementary is the only one of the division’s five schools that participates in CEP, and about 49% of students there are eligible for free meals.
“It’s a remarkable program”
Fredericksburg City Public Schools was an early adopter of CEP, implementing it at the elementary level in 2015. It’s now implemented at all city schools, the division’s food service director, Brian Kiernan, said last week.
“It’s been a positive program to us since Day 1 at every level, and certainly at the division level. It’s a remarkable program,” he said.
Raising the ISP back to 40% wouldn’t affect the city’s participation—but “it can all blow up if they say it’s going to go to 60%,” Kiernan said.
CEP works because it includes those children who might not qualify for free meals, but whose families still have tight budgets and who would otherwise “[fall] through the cracks,” Kiernan said.
The Rappahannock United Way has a term for these families—ALICE, an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed. Thirty percent of Fredericksburg households are ALICE households, households that earn more than the Federal Poverty Level, but less than the basic cost of living for the city.
In addition to easing the financial burden on ALICE families, CEP enables school nutrition programs to get more value for their money, Kiernan said. The program uses a formula based on the percent of eligible students to calculate how many meals are reimbursed at the free rate of $4.60 per meal and how many are reimbursed at the paid rate of 48-cents per meal.
In Fredericksburg, about 98% of meals can be reimbursed at the higher free rate, and Kiernan said he reinvests all that money into the food that goes on students’ plates.
“Our purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables has gone from $100,000 when we started [CEP] to $300,000 per year,” he said. “We’re spending big money on fresh food, which is what this money is supposed to be for.”
And that investment is driving up participation in school meals, Kiernan said. At the elementary level, about 55% of students eat school breakfast and 75% eat school lunch—and at the high school, 65% eat school lunch, which is “extraordinary” compared to average high school lunch participation, he said.
Kiernan said he thinks the message about the value of CEP is “not getting to the politicians.”
“I want to show them what we’re serving our kids,” he said. “We’re CEP, but we’re not serving them junk food. We’re not here to make a profit. We’re depositing money and reinvesting it on the plate.”
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BK and the nutrition workers make miracles every day for our students. I know some of my students rely on those two meals every day.
I remember before they implemented this plan, I would have to carry around some money just in case one of my students didn't have enough on their account so they could eat the lunch served and not be embarrassed because they had to eat a cheese sandwich, which is what they gave to kids with too big a negative balance.
This program is a life send and without it, kids are going to go hungry. This regime is literally taking food out of the mouths of babes.