This Friday, May 2, schools and communities across the country will observe School Lunch Hero Day, an opportunity to recognize the hardworking nutrition professionals who prepare nourishing meals for our students. When it comes to school meals in Virginia, we have a lot to celebrate. School cafeteria teams are introducing local produce, engaging students in recipe testing and in the process, helping to reduce childhood hunger by serving nutritious meals at school.
Unfortunately, proposed changes at the federal level could upend progress and make the work of nutrition professionals a lot more difficult.
House budget leaders have proposed a measure that would make it harder for 12 million children to get free school meals — including 492,000 students right here in Virginia — by stripping schools of their Community Eligibility (CEP) status.
The proposal comes as Virginia’s participation in CEP is at an all-time high, with over 1,200 schools leveraging the program. CEP allows eligible schools to provide no-cost breakfast and lunch to all students, which reduces stigma, eliminates red tape and effectively increases school meal participation.
Divisions or individual schools can qualify for CEP and receive federal reimbursements if more than one-fourth of their student body qualifies for free school meals through participation in another program like Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Enacted nationwide in 2014, CEP streamlines and makes meal service more efficient while helping families balance their food budgets. The House proposal would raise that threshold to 60% and enact other restrictions.
Here’s what the change could mean at the local level: Currently, all four of Radford’s schools offer free breakfast and lunch to 1,630 local students through CEP. Under the federal proposal, all city schools would lose CEP eligibility.
Over in Washington County, 15 schools leverage CEP, helping 6,677 kids access consistent meals. The proposal would wipe out eligibility for 14 of the district’s schools, impacting 6,399 learners, leaving only Valley Institute Middle School with CEP.
In Grayson County, the proposed change would knock the district’s middle and high schools off of CEP eligibility, impacting 882 teens.
These counties aren’t alone. No Kid Hungry Virginia estimates a staggering 770 CEP schools in Virginia would lose eligibility if the threshold increases to 60%.
To solve childhood hunger, we need tools like CEP. About 1 in 7 kids in Virginia face food insecurity. The uncomfortable reality is that there are kids in every Virginia community — rural, suburban and city alike — who walk through the school doors hungry. But thanks to school meals, they start and end school nourished and prepared to learn. When it comes down to it, programs like CEP represent one of our most effective and efficient solutions for connecting youth with healthy meals.
Without CEP status, school nutrition leaders would need to revert back to collecting school meal applications. That additional administrative responsibilities would mean increased paperwork burdens for busy parents and less time for nutrition professionals to implement nutrition education and taste testing, improve school meals or source local foods. More than anything, it makes it harder to focus on their top priority: feeding kids.
The proposed changes come as schools in Virginia and nationwide grapple with how to improve reading and math scores. Virginia, for example, ranks 51st in the U.S. for math recovery from 2019 to 2024, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The findings show we need more investment in our schools and students, not less. Multiple studies show how school meals can help improve attendance, academic performance and behavior. As we approach opportunities to improve learning outcomes, school meals and CEP must be part of the plan.
In my conversations with nutrition teams, school leadership and parents, people are overwhelmingly proud that their schools implement CEP. People living in Virginia agree with them, too. In a recent poll conducted by No Kid Hungry Virginia, nearly all Virginians say ending childhood hunger should be a shared, bipartisan priority. The potential cuts and changes to CEP will mean increases to childhood hunger, despite 92% of Virginians urging elected officials to do more to help.
With the right programs and policies, we know hunger is a solvable problem. But the current proposals being considered in Congress mean the problem becomes a lot harder to solve. CEP isn’t just important, it’s vital to how schools connect students with meals. As Congress looks to save money, any cuts to CEP will mean hunger is the likely cost.
Sarah Steely is director of No Kid Hungry Virginia and can be reached at ssteely@strength.org.