Congressional Republicans are reportedly considering spending cuts to balance the cost of extending the tax cuts they enacted in 2017. One proposal is to raise the eligibility threshold for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which lets schools provide federally reimbursed free meals to all students. This change would cut the number of…

State law requires the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to annually report to the Legislature the number of schools participating in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The report must identify barriers to participation and make recommendations to increase participation. The CEP…

According to research, adequate nutrition is essential for a child's well-being and development. However, an estimated 1.54 million U.S. students cannot afford the meals offered at school. Studies show that students from low-income households who rely on free school meals for breakfast and lunch have a significantly healthier diet than those who…

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…

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…

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…

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a non-pricing meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas. CEP allows the nation's highest poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications. Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed…

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…

This paper examines poverty's impact on student physical health, socioemotional health, and the brain. Further, although children spend only 20 percent of their time in school, this paper examines the school's role in student development, as well as proposes effective policies and programs that go beyond the classroom.