A recent study showed increases in free and reduced-price meals for students, including in Ohio, as some lawmakers attempt to get more of the meals paid for by the state.
The Food Research & Action Center’s study on the reach of school breakfast and lunch programs during the 2023-2024 school year showed participation in free and reduced-price school breakfast and lunch went up 9% in Ohio compared to the year before.
Participation went up nationwide as well, with nearly 12.2 million children participating in free or reduced-price school breakfasts and about 21.1 million children participating in school lunch programs.
“Ensuring that students are well-fed is part of safeguarding the health and well-being of our country’s children and supporting working families in every state,” the study stated.
Schools can provide free and reduced-price meals as part of the federal National School Lunch program and the School Breakfast program, programs that distribute aid based on household income.
Children in households with annual incomes at or below 130% of the federal poverty line are eligible for free meals, and students in households living between 130% and 185% of the federal poverty line can receive reduced-price meals. Students outside of those poverty levels pay prices set by individual school districts.
Ohio lawmakers passed a state budget in 2023 that included free meals for any student qualifying up to the reduced-price eligibility level, but it’s unclear whether that will continue under the new budget, still being decided by the General Assembly.
The Ohio House’s version of the budget kept the governor’s proposal to maintain the standard, keeping students eligible for reduced-price lunch from paying anything. But the House version did not include a proposal from the governor that required each school district that has at least 25% of students participating in meal programs to join onto the Community Eligibility Provision that would make breakfast and lunch free for every student.
Anti-hunger advocates across the country fear that provision might be on the chopping block as the budget reconciliation process continues at the U.S. Capitol, which would impact 280,000 students in Ohio alone, according to advocates.
More than 280,000 Ohio kids would be impacted by proposed national school meal program cuts
The Ohio Senate is deep in discussions on the state budget currently, and two senators are hoping to include universal meal eligibility as part of the Senate draft, something that has received public support from Ohioans in the past.
Ohio Senate Bill 109, which Republican co-sponsor Sen. Bill Blessing, of Colerain Township, hopes to see included in the two-year budget, would appropriate $300 million for reimbursements of public and chartered nonpublic schools to support school meal programs for all students.
Whatever comes of the Senate draft will have to be reconciled with the House draft as the two chambers come together to create a final draft to send to the governor by the end of June.
Overall in the U.S., free and reduced-price lunch went to 1.3 million more children compared to the 2022-2023 school year, according to the research center’s study. It attributed reductions in food insecurity and “numerous academic, health and behavioral benefits” to access to breakfast and lunch during the school day.
“The increase in participation – following a drop during the 2022-2023 school year as the pandemic-era nationwide child nutrition waivers expired – is a strong indication that school nutrition departments are stabilizing after years of facing staffing challenges and supply shortages triggered by the COVID-19 public health crisis,” researchers stated.
The center also noted the rebound shows nutrition departments in schools “were better positioned to implement many of the best practices that increase participation in school meals.”
But the biggest driver of increase, the study found, was the “growth in the number of schools offering meals to all students through the Community Eligibility Provision and state Healthy School Meals for All policies.”
“Offering meals at no charge to all students reduces the administrative burden on school nutrition departments, eliminates school meal debt, reduces stigma and streamlines the implementation of breakfast in the classroom and other innovative service models,” according to the study.
The center sees the increase in participation as “positive momentum,” but also said more participation could be happening.
“Participation in both school breakfast and school lunch by students from households with low incomes is lower than it was during the last full school year before the pandemic, which means that even though participation has increased from the prior school year, these programs have not regained all the ground lost during the last five years,” the study stated.
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