While Congress wrangles over one-year school-lunch waiver for some schools, the Senate Agriculture Committee will hold its second hearing of the summer on child nutrition. Set for Wednesday, the hearing “will examine school meal programs across the country” with an eye for ways “to continue strengthening these programs to better support America’s school children,” says the hearing announcement. School lunch is the largest of the child nutrition programs due for reauthorization in 2015.Witnesses are to include Julia Bauscher, president-elect of the School Nutrition Association (SNA) and two school food officials from Detroit and Mississippi.
“The real war is going to be over rewriting the law,” says Politico, which quotes Wendy Weyer, who chairs the SNA policy committee, as saying, “SNA has developed a unique and well thought-out legislative plan that carries us up through child nutrition reauthorization and forward into its implementation.” SNA says USDA has imposed unrealistic targets for serving healthier meals.
To read SNA’s 2014 position paper on school food programs, click here.