As pandemic aid ends, many schools struggle to fund meals for kids

The end of a pandemic-relief program to provide free breakfast and lunch to all of America's schoolchildren means renewed financial hardships for families and schools around the U.S.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, and other pandemic spending bills funded free meals for all children regardless of income. But that funding ended last year despite calls from anti-hunger advocates to continue the program. 

"We are really concerned about the impact of the debt on the families, but also on schools that are struggling to collect," Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association, told CBS MoneyWatch. "These losses, if they are unable to collect, will cut into education funds."

Data shows that hundreds of schools are falling behind in paying for meals, with unpaid debts for those expenses reaching $19.2 million as of November among the roughly 850 schools that reported such deficits, according to the School Nutrition Association, a professional group of school nutrition experts that ran the study. One school district alone reported meal debts of $1.7 million, while the median unpaid meal debt was $5,164 per school, the report noted.

Although such dollar figures may seem low, they can have a severe impact on schools strained by the effort to normalize their operations after the shutdowns earlier in the pandemic and, more recently, the impact of scorching inflation on their strained budgets.

The problem "underscores the extreme hardships that both families and schools continue to face and the need to find solutions," Lisa Davis, senior vice president of Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign, said in an email.

The end of free meals for all children brought the return of the free or reduced-price program, which provides food for children whose families' income is low enough to qualify. 

But some families are now finding they earn slightly too much to qualify for federally subsidized free or reduced-price meals, yet are struggling financially amid high inflation, Pratt-Heavner said. 

To qualify for free school meals, a family of four must earn less than $36,075 annually or earn less than $51,338 per year for reduced-price meals. Some families are resistant to applying for the free- or reduced-price program because they might not want to disclose information such as their incomes or Social Security numbers, or might simply be unfamiliar with the program, she added. 

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"It's been very challenging for schools to get those applications in this year," Pratt-Heavner said. "If you have a child in second grade, you may never have seen this application before."

States step in

Some states have stepped in to continue funding free meals for all students, including California, Massachusetts and Vermont. But children's nutritional needs don't change from one state to the next, which is why the School Nutrition Association is urging lawmakers to resume the free meal program for all kids, Pratt-Heavner said. 

Research has shown that hunger can impact a child's performance in school, according to Feeding America. Kids who struggle with a lack of food are more likely to repeat a grade and have more social and behavioral problems, it notes.

"Certainly there are families who know they can't afford the price of the meal but can't afford to send a well-balanced meal to school with their kid," Pratt-Heavner said. 

She added, "No child should go without a meal in the middle of the school day. It was such a benefit during the pandemic that any child could walk into a cafeteria and get a meal."

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