When the Little Rock School District noticed that the meals of the debt of the students rose more than a year and a half, it made a call for community aid in May. At more than $ 200,000, it was an amount never seen before by the district.
Donations started to flock, including a check for $ 11.89 of a great-grandmother who wanted to be able to give more, says Stephanie Walker Hynes, director of nutrition of children in the Arkansas district. In August, donations totaling more than $ 50,000 – including many individual “angel” investors – had chiseled the debt, which had accumulated in 13 district schools which did not qualify for free federal meals for all students.
The need for a donation campaign testifies to the extended budgetary reality with which many families are confronted. The debt of students’ meals reached an average of $ 537 per child, according to the School Nutrition Association. Pressures on families include the outbreak of grocery bills, large vegetable prices jumping 38% in July and beef now at record heights.
Why we wrote this
School lunch debt increased quickly. From now on, Snap and Medicaid changes could reduce automatic eligibility to free meals and reduced prices. How do schools react to prevent hunger and save their budgets?
School districts are trying to keep their students in the midst of an expected reduction in federal government aid and uncertainty about the amount of aid that states can provide. The “Big Beautiful Bill” of the Trump administration does not directly mention school meals, but it includes historic cups in Medicaid and the additional nutritional assistance program (SNAP), which both offer students direct admissibility to free school meals or reduced price. States and schools dimension what their responsibility for access to food will be their part.
“It will take a while to really see what it looks like,” said Clarissa Hayes, assistant director of children’s programs and nutrition policies at the Food Research & Action Center. “With these cuts in instant, a large part of the OINUS will be on the States to understand how to cross them and how to allocate funding.”
All of this is a concern for educators and parents, who sound alarms on changes which, they believe, could increase the hunger for childhood – and reduce learning. Research has always shown that students who are properly fed work better in class.
The pandemic brought a period of free lunches for all students, at the foot of the federal government. This universal derogation for free lunch expired in 2022. Today, nine states offer students free meals, whatever the income. New York’s new universal meal program entered into force when the students turn back after the Labor Day.
Increasing meal debt
Almost all school districts (97%) which do not offer free school meals have reported challenges concerning unpaid debt, according to a recent School Nutrition Association survey. According to American regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture, the meal debt cannot be reimbursed with federal funds. This forces districts to find the money, which means that it is probably diverted from other educational uses. And meals debt has largely climbed over the past decade, reaching a district median of $ 6,900 in November 2024. It is almost 26% higher than the previous year and more than 100% higher than the median debt reported by the districts at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.
With these already at stake concerns, the adoption of Big Beautiful Bill poses another challenge. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the new work requirement provided by the tax bill would reduce the participation of the SNAP of 2.4 million people during an average month in the next decade. The White House, for its part, has led changes as a means of fighting waste, fraud and abuse to serve “really needy”.
“SNAP was intended to be a temporary help for those who meet difficult times – we strengthen this program to serve those who need it most,” said an announcement of the White House in June.
Without direct eligibility for Snap for free school meals or at a reduced price, more families will have to fill out documents to determine if they qualify, explains Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, a lobbying group. But some families avoid applying for embarrassment, immigration problems or lack of time.
“This application process is very heavy, not only for the family, but for the school district,” she said. “And there are many ways throughout this process that an eligible child can pass through the meshes of the net.”
Today, eligibility is like this for a family of four: free meals for household students winning $ 41,795 or less per year and reduced meals for those who earn $ 59,478 per year. (Eligibility rates for Alaska and Hawaii differ.)
A typical school lunch last year cost $ 2.95 for primary children, $ 3.10 for college students and $ 3.30 for high school students, according to the School Nutrition Association. Multiplyed in weeks and months, defenders claim that these costs may be too much to bear for families living on the financial margins of eligibility.
After years to work as manager of the cafeteria for public schools in Meriden in Connecticut and to raise his seven children and dozens of reception children, Janet Crosetti-Jackson says that the advantages of free school meals cannot be overestimated. In his family, free school meals for his adoptive children have enabled him to buy more expensive and healthier foods for dinner, she said.
Each district has a policy to manage students who cannot pay, which could include the supply of an alternative meal such as a cheese, fruit and milk sandwich. In Little Rock at least, no student refuses in his dining rooms.
“We do not refuse a hungry child,” explains Ms. Walker Hynes. “It is not the child’s fault.”
Other options for Haute Pause Districts
Ms. Crosetti-Jackson saw the need for first hand when students regularly passed the meal line without money.
“I would say,” Do you have the money for your lunch? ” And they would say no, and intimidation would immediately begin children behind them, “she said.
From now on, most schools in its district have qualified for the federal disposition of community eligibility, which allows free meals for all students in high pause districts. Last year, 54,234 schools across the United States participated in CEP, continuing to increase several years, according to the Food Research & Action Center.
With the kind permission of Vivian Crespo
Susan Maffe, director of food and nutritional services for Meriden public schools, says that she feels “blessed” to have the program in her community, where poverty is so high that the district operates a food truck to provide meals in summer.
But this gratitude is interrupted with concern. Connecticut payment error rate – The extent to which a state is underpaid or too paid for eligible social benefits – during financial year 2024 was 10.25%. Big Beautiful Bill demands that any state with an error rate greater than 10% must pay 15% of its benefits of benefits, which could put Connecticut into play for millions of dollars in the years to come.
Ms. Maffe does not expect to see how Connecticut manages potential funding changes. She educates parents on their eligibility for social benefits, which, in turn, could help the district maintain free meals for all students thanks to CEP.
“If you are eligible for Snap, not only do you help yourself, you help the school district,” she says, describing her message to parents.
In July, the Little Rock School District announced that it had been approved to participate in CEP for the 2025-2026 academic year, which means that children in most schools will receive breakfast and free lunch. But, like her colleagues from Connecticut, Ms. Walker Hynes says that she monitors how federal changes take place in Arkansas. “I don’t know what it will look like,” she says.
Public schools provide students with free bus transport and chromebooks, says Ms. Crosetti-Jackson. “But food, which is a need to live, we load them.”
