Advocates warn about expiring waivers for school lunches

On Apr 10, 2022

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An end to a series of regulation waivers, implemented during the pandemic, could have serious repercussions for many Ohio students next school year.

During the pandemic, USDA Food and Nutrition Service waived the requirement that schools serve meals in a group setting, increased reimbursement rates to summer levels for school programs and granted more flexibility in how food is prepared and packaged.

What You Need To Know

During the pandemic, USDA Food and Nutrition Service waived the requirement that determine how school meals are served

The waivers are set to expire at the end of the 2021-22 school year

Anti-hunger advocates warn that inflation and supply chain issues will worsen the situation for low income families if the waivers expire

The goal was to help millions of children that rely on school meals to keep hunger at bay.

Those changes will expire at the end of the school year and some anti-hunger advocates are worried it could affect families as inflation and supply chain issues linger on.

Recent census data shows that federal economic support reduced hunger during much of 2021, but food insecurity rates have risen once again.

Shannon Amos, vice president of programs at Children’s Hunger Alliance, said that before the pandemic started, about one-in-four children had issues getting access to food in their communities, and during the pandemic, that number rose significantly.

She said even though it’s reduced, food insecurity issues are prevalent for children.

“I think a lot of that has to do with inflation, has to do with continued access issues,” said Amos. “A lot of the pandemic, kind of flood of food into the community, has been reduced again. And so we really need to just keep working to keep that support up to make sure that kids have access to food.”

Amos said parents who cannot take their children to community access points for each meal are the ones facing some of the biggest hurdles as the summer approaches, because summer schools and community partners cannot distribute meals grab and go, nor could they distribute multiple meals at a time.

“For parents who had transportation issues, had timing issues during the day, maybe around jobs or other things, having multiple meals able to be distributed at a time was a significant benefit for them,” said Amos. “So now what’s happening is we’ll go back to standard regulations, which means, if a child wants breakfast, they’re going to have to come in the morning, if a child wants lunch, they have to come in the afternoon.

“And for kids that are enrolled in programs, that’s not as much of an issue but for those who aren’t, [those] who are just relying on community access points, just to get food to them, they really will have a significant barrier this summer. So we’re really worried about the number of meals that are going to go out this summer and the number of kids who have access.”

Beyond the summer and into the school year, Amos said there’s significant concern about the impact of supply chain issues too.

“… and being able to put all the components together for those school meals, especially some of those ‘center of the plate’ items, say, the protein items and some other things,” Amos said. “And so, with the reimbursement going back to normal levels, there’s real problems and concern that those meals aren’t going to be affordable or that we’re not going to be able to put together reimbursable meals and the continued staffing shortages are also a concern, that’s kind of outside of waivers, but it just compounds the problem.”