This study investigates the implementation and impact of the community eligibility provision (CEP) in Maryland schools. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a federal school-based meal service option that allows high poverty schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost. CEP was introduced over the period 2015 to…

Household Food Insecurity (HFI) is a frequent challenge for children living in poverty that impacts social, emotional, and behavioral development. Federally assisted meal programs, such as the National School Breakfast Program, address HFI for students living in poverty through free or reduced-price breakfast. However, there are challenges for…

Public school students in the Black Belt of Alabama suffer from food insecurity disproportionately compared with national peers. Results of a recent mixed methods study indicated food insecurity levels that were three times the national average, with very low food security an alarming 11 times the national average. In the fight against hunger in…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) provide federal funding for school lunches and breakfasts served to nearly 30 million children daily in close to 94,000 schools. Because federal spending on NSLP and SBP depends in part on student participation in school meals, it may be of interest to Congress to…

Over the last decade, more and more schools have adopted Universal Free Meals (UFM), a program that provides meals free of charge to all students, regardless of household income. Recent research finds UFM increases participation in school meals, improves test scores, and reduces incidences of bad behavior. Additionally, advocates cite stigma…

The issue of school food and its role in the learning environment has been overlooked by educators, education researchers, and policy makers. This study uses observations and interviews in three high-poverty, urban schools to investigate how participants experience school food policy in their daily lives. Participants at all three schools believed…

This paper examines whether schoolwide free meals affect disciplinary outcomes, focusing on the use of suspensions. Under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), schools serving sufficiently high-poverty populations may enroll their entire student bodies in free lunch and breakfast programs, extending free meals to some students who would not…

During the U.S. post-WWII recovery, appropriations for school lunch became codified in the 1946 National School Lunch Act, fueling program growth in the baby boom era to 18.9 million participating children by 1967, or about 42 percent of 45 million enrolled students. Then, in 1968, two reports funded by the Field Foundation of New York highlighted…

This study sought to examine the extent of contribution of school feeding programmes towards the achievement of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) policy in countries. Based on a purposive sampling of a deprived rural community in northern Ghana, the study utilised the concurrent mixed method design relying mainly on documentary…

This report presents findings from the Access Evaluation, a study component that is designed to assess the potential impacts of direct certification-Medicaid (DC-M) on students' access to free school meals by conducting retrospective simulations of DC-M in school year 2011-2012, the year before the demonstration began. For the Access Evaluation,…

The Great Recession and its immediate aftermath have brought increasing attention both to food insecurity among children and to the associated food safety net. This report examines how the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) functions as a component of the broader food assistance safety net for school-age children, focusing on…

School breakfast is associated with a host of positive outcomes, such as improved health and attendance, reduced behavioral problems, and increased academic achievement. Unfortunately, a majority of Washington students who qualify for free or reduced-price breakfasts do not currently receive one at school, with many students eating no breakfast at…

Using 2005 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment survey, this study examines the contribution of school meals to the food and nutrient intake of children in food-secure, marginally secure, and food-insecure households. The study finds that children from food-insecure and marginally secure…

In September 2003, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) contracted with ALTA Systems to conduct a project with the goal of providing a comprehensive overview of the relationship between poverty, program participation and obesity by conducting an in depth literature review; and convening an expert panel. The…

Children, grades three through six, in Lawrence (Massachusetts) were studied during the 1986-87 school year to determine whether participation in the School Breakfast Program by low-income children is associated with improvements in standardized achievement test scores and attendance rates. Findings indicate that participation is associated with…