Margaret Barthel
Families throughout the D.C. region whose children qualify for the federal free and reduced price meals program will once again have to apply to receive the benefit, with federal pandemic support for free meals for every student in school elapsing this fall.
Congress has not renewed funding for the pandemic expansion of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s school meals program, the nation’s first-ever attempt at making free food available to all students. The expansion made it possible for schools to provide free meals to any student, a move intended to combat rising food insecurity in the first two years of the pandemic. It also allowed schools added flexibility in offering meals for pick-up (instead of requiring students to eat on school premises) and providing meals on the weekends.
By several measures, the expansion succeeded: in conjunction with other shifts in child nutrition policy, the program helped reduce national food shortage rates in households with children by 40% between January and April 2021, according to data from Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA), who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Pre-pandemic, nearly 3 million households with kids did not have consistent sources of healthy food, and rates of food insecurity were significantly higher for Black and Hispanic families.
The USDA waiver expanded the ability of schools in the D.C. region to try to close those gaps. In Alexandria, for example, schools typically served 4,500 breakfasts and about 8,000 lunch meals each day. That number ballooned at the height of pandemic need.
“During the peak of our meal distribution program during the pandemic, with the USDA waiver, we were averaging 25,000 total meals/day,” said Cynthia Hormel, the Alexandria school nutrition director, in an email to WAMU/DCist. “That included breakfast, lunch, snack, and supper for children between the ages of two and 18 who are City of Alexandria residents.”
With students back in hybrid classroom arrangements, the number decreased, but was still above the pre-pandemic norm, with 4,750 breakfasts served per day and 9,300 lunches.
But now, even as inflation pushes food prices ever higher, the money that made all that possible is expiring.
That means families across the country — and here in the D.C. region — will once again have to submit an application to prove that they’re eligible for free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches — or begin to pay.
Local and state school officials are scrambling to make families aware of the shift and get applications filed before school begins in a few weeks.
Who will this affect most?
The scale of local school meal programs is staggering: in Virginia, for instance, the Department of Education estimates that the commonwealth’s public schools served more than 172 million school meals in the last school year, 2 million more than in the 2018-2019 school year.
In Montgomery County, Md., the region’s second-largest school district, nearly 40% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, according to Maryland state data. That same figure is roughly 20% in Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest school system in the region. In D.C., it’s close to 60%.
Experts worry that the return to requiring families to apply for meals benefits this school year will result in lapses in meal coverage for families who may not know they need to submit an application, may be hesitant to submit the information to the schools, or who get their application in late.
There are also concerns that stigmas around families not being able to pay for school meals may reassert itself, after two years of all kids eating free, no matter their income. A Montgomery County Public Schools FAQ on the school meals program attempted to address that issue, reassuring parents that schools will use student ID numbers in school lunch lines to maintain confidentiality.
“By using this system, there is no way for any student to know if a classmate’s lunch account is being charged or if the student is receiving a free meal,” the FAQ explains.
The end of universal free meals comes as families’ purchasing power has been cut by burgeoning inflation. For example, a family of four living off of $52,000 per year, or $1,000 per week — an extremely difficult feat in the high-cost D.C. region — will lose the school meal benefit they’ve been used to. But their $1,000 this June had the same buying power as $916 did a year ago, according to a federal inflation calculator.
Who is still eligible for free meals, and what’s involved in the application?
Income requirements for student eligibility are set by the federal government yearly, at 130% of the federal poverty level for free meals and 185% of the federal poverty level for reduced-price meals — $36,075.01 and $51,338 per year for a family of four, respectively. Some experts believe that the federal poverty measure is seriously out-of-date and doesn’t reflect lived realities of economic hardship.
The free meals application form generally asks families to list the members of their household and the income they each bring in, as well as other information about federal benefits.
There are a few cases in which families may not be required to submit an application in order for their children to receive free meals. Children in households receiving other federal poverty support, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, otherwise known as food stamps), Medicaid, or Temporary Cash Assistance, should qualify automatically. So do foster children, students certified as unhoused, students in the federal Head Start program, or migrant students.
Some schools with a high proportion of meals-eligible students qualify for a “community eligibility provision” (CEP), which means that all students there eat for free, with no application required. D.C. Public Schools, for instance, has 89 schools this year with CEP status; Fairfax County Public Schools has 34. Families with students enrolled in those schools do not need to submit an application to receive the free meal benefit.
What’s being done to try to mitigate the impact of this shift on families?
In some cases, local and state officials have been able to draw on existing COVID relief money to help cushion families from the worst effects — Alexandria is using some pandemic funds to get rid of all outstanding pre-pandemic meal debt on student accounts, per Mimberg — or use state or local support to begin to close the gap.
In Virginia, the latest state budget includes $8.2 million in funding to make school breakfasts and lunches free for students who only qualify for the reduced-price option under the federal criteria — about 64,500 kids, according to No Kid Hungry Virginia. The state also passed a law in the spring to prevent schools from punishing students or withholding food or opportunities because of outstanding meal debt.
In Maryland, an effort to shore up support for community eligibility provisions and to require the state to pay for universal school meals this school year didn’t make it across the legislative finish line. The state does offer supplemental support for schools providing free breakfasts.
Federally, Congressman Scott is pushing the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act, which would expand the criteria for “community eligibility provision” status — meaning more schools could serve free meals to their entire student bodies — and increase the amount of federal reimbursement sent to local schools serving free and reduced price meals.
I think my child qualifies. Where do I apply?
School systems in the D.C. region have made applications available online, or on paper in school offices. Many have phone numbers for parents with questions to call.
Alexandria City Public Schools
Montgomery County Public Schools
Prince George’s County Public Schools
Prince William County Public Schools
This story has been updated to name the Alexandria City Public Schools nutrition director.
