Student participation in school meal programs dropped 30 percent in the first nine months of the pandemic, according to new USDA data, leaving kids without meals amid acute rates of food insecurity and draining the programs of critical revenue.
Pandemic-related waivers for school meal programs, first put in place in March 2020 and recently extended through September of this year, have been crucial in helping families access food kids would normally eat at school — even while schools closed their campuses or opted for hybrid learning models. The waivers allowed schools and community centers to serve as meal pickup sites for all children, increased flexibility around meal times, and allowed parents to pick up multiple meals at once.
But even with those waivers, schools nationwide served 1.7 billion fewer meals between March and November 2020 than during the same period in 2019, the new data show. This resulted in a $2.1 billion loss in federal revenue for these programs. Although schools are reimbursed only for meals served, they must still cover fixed production costs, from kitchen staff salaries to food equipment, along with additional costs associated with the pandemic, including protective gear and the additional packaging needed to adapt to providing to-go meals.
“The pandemic and school closures have sent school meal programs into a financial tailspin despite extraordinary efforts of school nutrition professionals to continue nourishing students who aren’t able to visit cafeterias each day,” said Reggie Ross, president of the School Nutrition Association, in a statement. “Between the drop in revenue from decreased participation and higher pandemic meal service costs, school meal programs face an uncertain future. Congress must provide additional emergency relief funds to ensure these critical programs remain financially sustainable to serve students in the future.”
Although congressional emergency funding helped alleviate some of the burden, funding for school meal programs provided in the December 2020 stimulus package did not cover all pandemic-related losses, which have likely increased in the months since. “We anticipate future data will reveal declines in December and January given the dramatic surge in COVID-19 disrupting in-person learning, coupled with winter weather in much of the country hindering grab-and-go service,” Ross said.
Ross called for additional congressional funding to “help schools offset these meal program losses, which will impact education budgets at the local level, cutting into necessary funds for teachers, textbooks, and technology.”
The new data could also embolden demands to extend the waivers beyond September, something anti-hunger advocates called for even as they praised the move. Given ongoing uncertainty over school reopening, some have called for waiver extensions through June 2022.