Background: The public health policies and school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have created disruptions in school meal programs. Research is needed to understand the changes in school food service revenue before and during the initial COVID-19-related school shutdowns. Methods: A longitudinal cohort study examining federal and…

Colorado's Healthy School Meals for All (HSMA) program provides free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of economic background, and aims to strengthen farm-to-school systems and school food service workers' pay. After unexpected increases in student participation, the program faced a significant budget shortfall that raised warning…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the Nation's second-largest food and nutrition assistance program, providing billions of meals to tens of millions of children and adolescents each year. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) periodically reports on NSLP policies and program operations, often after major changes to the program's rules…

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allows school districts to provide free meals to all students if over 40 percent of them are directly certified as free-meal eligible. While emerging evidence documents positive effects on student behavior and academics, critics worry that CEP has unintended…

This report presents data on public elementary and secondary education revenues and expenditures at the local education agency (LEA) or school district level for fiscal year (FY) 2021. Specifically, this report includes the following types of school district finance data: (1) revenue, current expenditure, and capital outlay expenditure totals; (2)…