By making the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, more widely available, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing an estimated 3,000 more school districts in high-need communities the choice to provide breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost. This move comes on the one-year anniversary of the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, where the Biden-Harris Administration promised to advance a pathway to healthy school meals for all students.
According to a press release shared on September 26, with CEP, schools can offer meals at no cost to all kids without asking parents to submit applications for free and reduced-price meals. Instead, school districts receive federal financing determined by a formula utilizing data from SNAP and other programs, and any shortfall between program expenditures and federal support must be made up by local or state dollars. This final regulation reduces the bar for CEP eligibility from 40% to 25% of students living in homes eligible for certain income-based federal assistance programs.
While this CEP adjustment is applicable everywhere, it will have a greater impact in states and school districts that pledge to provide all students with healthy school meals using their own finances. Eight states - California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont - have adopted additional long-term measures to ensure that hunger is not a barrier to children's development. With the help of this final rule, schools in these states who were previously ineligible for CEP can now benefit from more streamlined and effective school food operations as well as stable federal funding levels.
CEP, along with other models for providing healthy school meals to all at no cost, offers a number of advantages. It reduces the cost of food for families and enhances the security of food and nutrition, particularly for students from families who just miss the threshold for free and reduced-price school meals. It also eliminates debt for school meals and removes the stigma associated with students who receive free or discounted meals while others pay full price. Additionally, CEP boosts student participation in school breakfast and lunch programs, which in turn boosts income for establishments and enables them to serve healthier food. It also provides time savings for dedicated school nutrition staff by streamlining program operations.
Overall, this new rule from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will increase access to breakfast and lunch for more students in high-need communities and help advance the Biden-Harris Administration's goal of providing healthy school meals for all students.
