An additional 20,000 schools in poor neighborhoods would have the option of serving breakfast and lunch for free to all of their students under a proposal by the USDA, a step toward a potential expansion of universal free meals by more than 50 percent. “This is an investment in our youngsters,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday.
During a teleconference, Vilsack announced a proposed regulation to lower the threshold for schools to qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows schools in low-income areas to serve meals for free to all students, rather than the usual system of offering free, reduced-price, and full-price meals depending on household income.
The change in the CEP threshold would dovetail with President Biden’s request for $15 billion over 10 years to support schools participating in the initiative and reach an additional 9 million children. At present, 33,000 schools and 16 million children participate in CEP, said USDA officials.
“My hope would be they would see the benefits of this,” said Vilsack, when asked about the potential reaction on Capitol Hill. House Republicans have called for sharp cuts in spending. Child nutrition programs are expected to cost $28.5 billion this fiscal year.
In its proposed regulation, the USDA would set the minimum identified student participation (ISP) threshold at 25 percent, down from the current 40 percent. The ISP is the portion of students in a school who are certified for free meals without submitting a household application — for example, if their family is enrolled in SNAP. The USDA uses the ISP in calculating reimbursement payments to schools participating in CEP. Schools are responsible for costs that exceed USDA aid, but they save money on the time and labor involved in keeping track of who must pay for a meal and who gets a break.
“Studies have … shown that CEP schools experienced significant student participation growth in their school meal programs,” said the USDA in its proposed regulation. It said a March 2022 study found that participation in school lunch was 7 percent higher and participation in school breakfast was 12 percent higher in CEP schools than in comparable schools that were not part of CEP.
An average of 28.2 million students a day ate hot meals through the school lunch program in December 2022, the most recent month for which statistics are available, according to the USDA. School breakfast participation averaged 14.3 million students a day.
The USDA says free school meals “are positively associated with students’ diet quality and academic performance, such as standardized math test scores. … Participation increases in CEP schools result in more students receiving the nutrition necessary to support learning.”
Also on Wednesday, the USDA awarded $50 million to four organizations to manage the School Food System Transformation Challenge grant program, an initiative to bring a wider variety of healthy foods into the school cafeteria. And it opened the application period for $10 million in Team Nutrition grants to extend nutrition education beyond the lunchroom.
The proposed CEP regulation was scheduled to appear in the Federal Register on Thursday. A pre-publication copy is available here. There is a 45-day public comment period.