Free breakfast and lunch program for Connecticut students could disappear for some

CT Insider – Sunday, December 22, 2024
By Natasha Sokoloff

Connecticut got a taste of what a universal school meals program could look like during the pandemic, when federal waivers allowed districts to offer breakfast and lunch for free to all students. But since then, schoolchildren’s access to free meals has only gone down, and some are concerned it could get worse.

With just weeks until a new state legislative session begins and President-elect Donald Trump takes office, advocates for universal school meals say they need more funding at all levels to sustain the existing meal programs in Connecticut schools.

“There is very little funding to actually be able to put a full meal out on the table, but yet, we do it every day,” said Randall Mel, vice president of the School Nutrition Association of Connecticut and the director of food, nutrition and wellness services at Middletown Public Schools.

In Connecticut, the majority of funding for school meals comes from the federal level, with state and local money filling in the gaps. And for the last few years, federal pandemic relief money has been a major contributor.

But advocates say that has not been nearly enough, and those federal funds dollars have dried up.

“What those (American Rescue Plan Act) funds proved was that there’s such a big need in Connecticut for so many programs, and we can’t keep starving these programs by not funding them,” said Lucy Nolan, policy advisor for End Hunger Connecticut. “But the problem is, now we have so many people who are competing for those dollars that are no longer available. So I am very concerned about what we’re going to be able to get our kids.”

According to the School Nutrition Association, only 17 percent of school meal program directors across the country say the current federal meal reimbursement rate is sufficient to cover the cost of producing a meal.

And meal directors at districts across the state described drastically less support for free meals this year, intensifying their fear for the future.

“Honestly, we don’t know where anything’s at right now,” he said. “We don’t even really know where we’re at fully with our own state legislature right now, what they’re looking at.”

Last year, all public school children were eligible for free breakfast in Connecticut, and some got free lunch. This year, the state Department of Education covers the costs of one breakfast and one lunch per day for students qualifying for reduced-price meals, made possible through reduced-price meal legislation using the last of the ARPA funds.

Plainville Community Schools’ Food Services Director Ashley Carl said that the district served significantly more breakfast meals when they were free to all, highlighting the larger worry among advocates that students will go hungry if funding shrinks further.

Because at this rate, districts may not be able to keep carrying the costs of providing free meals, Nolan said. “I’m not feeling optimistic, to tell you the truth,” she said.

Discouraging deficits
More than 500 schools across the state are approved by the state Department of Education to implement the federal Community Eligibility Provision during this school year, according to department data, allowing thousands of Connecticut students to get free meals.

Through the program, districts in low-income areas can offer all their students free meals if at least 40 percent of the student body participates in programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Temporary Family Assistance, and get a certain amount reimbursed by the federal government.

But for so many districts across the state, the reimbursement rate and current funding stream just wasn’t cutting it, said Dianne Houlihan, president of SNACT and the food service director at Waterford Public Schools. Many districts are facing significant meal deficits, ranging from thousands of dollars to more than a million.

“There are less and less districts who are financially stable, who can take on everything themselves without getting assistance,” Mel said.

Middletown participates in CEP, and therefore gets a certain percentage of money from the federal government to serve free meals to all students. But because not every meal is reimbursed by that funding, the district is responsible for the remaining costs.

Mel said the district has stayed in the program, willing to take on that financial burden “because it is the right thing to do,” but things were getting harder.

“Unfortunately, this year it actually looks like it’s going to be a heavier ask of the district,” he said. “It’s probably going to be an ask of about anywhere between $100,000 maybe $300,000, that the district may have to put in, because a lot of those federal and state monies have either come to an end or have been drastically reduced.”

Even smaller districts like Waterford averaged anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000 per month in negative debt around school meals, Houlihan said.

In addition, Mel said schools were dealing with rising food and labor costs. “We’re struggling to just maintain financial stability,” he said.

And for some districts, it’s already gotten to the point where providing free meals is not sustainable anymore. Stamford schools, for instance, is facing a $1 million meals deficit for the next school year, and district leaders are considering leaving the CEP program as a result. That’s a debate taking place in other districts, such as Norwalk, Nolan said.

“If we’re not getting the funds that we need, either from the state or from the federal government, myself and other districts are really at risk of having to make difficult decisions,” Mel said.

And for Nolan, that was a scary prospect. “That’s a lot of students who really need the meals that could be losing them,” she said.

An uncertain future
Right now, advocates said they couldn’t speculate as to how the Trump administration might impact school meal programs and funding. “I don’t think anybody knows really, what’s going to happen,” Nolan said.

But what can Trump’s first term tell us, if anything? In 2020, the Trump administration temporarily expanded free school meals to all students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“And what we saw was a huge uptick in the number of kids who were getting the meals, and it was really, really helpful during that time,” Nolan said. “There was a huge need for food.”

But those waivers expired in 2022 and districts began charging for meals again.

While Trump hasn’t introduced any concrete policies around school meals as of yet, a budget proposal by House Republicans and the views of Trump’s conservative allies don’t necessarily suggest he would bring back the COVID-era policy. In fact, it’s the opposite.

A 2025 budget proposal by House Republicans actually calls for eliminating the community eligibility provision altogether, instead using state block grants for child nutrition programs.

And despite attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 throughout his campaign, many of Trump’s cabinet picks and political allies worked on the policy agenda produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 also calls for eliminating CEP, and says that the next administration should “reject efforts to create universal free school meals.”

It says federal school-meal programs “increasingly resemble entitlement programs” and “any efforts to expand student eligibility for federal school meals to include all K–12 students should be soundly rejected.” According to Project 2025, “such expansion would allow an inefficient, wasteful program to grow, magnifying the amount of wasted taxpayer resources.”

But Houlihan noted that the sheer size of the meals deficit in so many districts indicated otherwise.

“The negative debt, to me, is very important, because it’s showing you, our families, our students want to eat. They need to eat. Our families aren’t able to afford it,” she said. “It’s not that people just don’t want to pay. They can’t.”

And Nolan said that she thinks oftentimes people hold misconceptions around universal school meals.

“I think it is not seen as a critical program that it is,” Nolan said. “I think Connecticut’s wealth gap really hurts us in this way, because people feel like, ‘well, why would the state be paying for wealthy kids to get the meals?’ But one has to remember that there are kids who are not wealthy, who go to school and live in those towns, and they’re suffering in many other ways. And so why would you double the suffering?”

Several advocates also said nutritious meals in schools help students succeed academically, help with chronic absenteeism, improve student mental health and support local economies. And Carl said she has seen firsthand how free meals for all students reduces stigma in the cafeteria.

“Kids who are eligible for free or reduced price meals are more likely to eat when everybody else is eating,” Nolan said. “When you do this, you’re helping all kids, but you’re really helping the kids that need it the most.”

Currently, a handful of states offer a form of universal free school food. Advocates hope to add Connecticut to the list, and are calling on the state legislature to come up with funding in the upcoming session.

For Nolan, it was a matter of the state putting the money in. “We have the money, and they’re keeping the money away from the programs, and that’s a problem,” she said.

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