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Dive Brief:
- Nearly three quarters — 74% — of school districts are concerned about the effect on school meals from looming federal budget cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid, according to a report released May 27 by the Food Research & Action Center.
- Children are set to lose direct certification for free school meals as families lose access to SNAP, increasing the risk of food insecurity, according to FRAC.
- School districts reported that infrastructure challenges limit their ability to increase school meal participation, with over 80% of the 96 surveyed districts reporting high food and labor costs in the 2025-26 school year.
Dive Insight:
Lower SNAP participation complicates school nutrition operations by increasing paperwork burdens and making it harder for schools to implement the Community Eligibility Provision, the FRAC report said. The federal CEP allows high-poverty schools and districts to offer meals at no cost to enrolled students.
“As a result, the cuts to SNAP risk increasing food insecurity for children both at home and in the classroom,” FRAC warned.
A little over a third, or 34%, of SNAP households have children, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers both SNAP and school meal programs. SNAP participation has declined by some 3.3 million people in the last year, according to FRAC, as a new federal law tightened eligibility.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the One Big, Beautiful Bill would wind up reducing SNAP participation by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month over the 2025-2034 period.
In the last year, in the 12 states with available data, the number of children receiving SNAP food assistance has dropped by over 700,000 since the law was enacted last year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
CBO’s analysis showed that subsidies provided through child nutrition programs would decrease for about 96,000 children in an average month between 2028 and 2034.
Another federal-level change may rock schools’ ability to provide children with meals: USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, which administers school meal programs, is reorganizing and relocating staff across the country.
The reorganization has raised concerns about loss of local oversight and expertise, along with reduced personnel and resources, said Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., in a May 27 letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Scott is the highest-ranking Democrat on the the House Education and Workforce Committee, and Bonamici is the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.
Nearly 30% of the FNS workforce has already been reduced under the Trump administration, according to the lawmakers.
“School nutrition staff are working hard to provide healthy meals to fuel children’s health and learning, but it is becoming increasingly challenging for them to do so,” said Crystal FitzSimons, president of FRAC, in a May 27 statement. “The need to expand and fortify school meals programs has never been more urgent.”
