By — Laura Santhanam Laura Santhanam Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/millions-of-u-s-children-could-face-hunger-as-omnibus-bill-moves-without-school-meal-waivers Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter School officials struggle with how to feed students as omnibus bill skips meal waivers Health Mar 10, 2022 4:17 PM EDT School nutrition and child development experts say millions of children in the United States could go hungry as soon as this summer, because the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill moving through Congress this week failed to include waivers that gives schools flexibility in preparing and distributing food to students. That’s even as a growing number of students are expected to need remedial help to overcome learning loss driven by remote classes and quarantine. During the COVID pandemic, Congress authorized the federal Department of Agriculture to grant waivers that covered rising food prices caused by supply chain issues. Those waivers reimbursed schools at higher rates for the cost of school meals and allowed schools to prepare food that families could either pick up or have delivered at or near their homes. These exceptions were crucial for feeding children who relied on school-prepared meals, said Brandon Stratford, a child health and development expert at Child Trends, a national nonprofit research group. According to a February report from the Department of Agriculture, more than 8 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program and 5 million meals were served through the School Breakfast Program in 2021, down from previous year. Those waivers are set to expire on June 30, and school nutrition administrators, like Leah Feagin from Mayfield, Kentucky, don’t know how they are going to feed children in her school district once summer begins. READ MORE: How Maine is trying to take food insecurity off kids’ plates During spring and summer of 2020, while children were not attending school in person, Feagin’s staff showed up to work daily, making meals, knocking on doors and distributing food to students living in homes with active COVID cases. In the community, “we were school nutrition heroes,” Feagin said. Then, a Dec. 10 tornado killed 22 people in the area and leveled much of the town. Fortunately, Feagin said, the school was left virtually intact, and staff returned to prepare meals for students, many of whom had lost their homes. The waivers made that possible, Feagin said. This time of year, she said she and her peers are planning summer meal programs. But supply chain issues have made that work more grueling. Schools are encountering food shortages just like consumers at the grocery store, and staff must follow nutritional guidelines set by the Department of Agriculture. When whole grain breads are simply not available or unaffordable, school nutrition administrators like Feagin have to consider other options, like white bread or flatbreads. The Department of Agriculture has COVID relief funding available, but the department can only allow those meal pattern flexibility waivers if Congress grants them the authority to do so. Even the price for a case of chicken – up from $116 in August to $170 today – has forced Feagin to recalculate how she plans and offers meals to kids who still need food so they are prepared to learn. School nutrition advocates had pushed for an $11 billion provision to be included in the omnibus bill that could have helped cover meal costs and reimbursements – roughly the amount originally slated in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better framework last fall. But the House did not include that priority in the spending package it passed on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that the White House had submitted to Congress its $22 billion supplemental request for COVID relief in the omnibus bill “with not a mention of a nutrition waiver extension,” and that “it was not in the Democrat-led House’s omnibus bill” either. The School Nutrition Association, a national nonprofit that represents more than 50,000 school nutrition administrators who provide meals to students, plans to meet with the Department of Agriculture next week to ask if the federal department considers these waivers to carry no added costs and if that means states can then allow schools to give students meals that they can eat outside of school under these waivers. When Feagin and other school nutrition administrators realized Congress had not granted the Department of Agriculture authority to extend the waivers, Feagin became and remains very concerned. If the waivers expire this summer, she said she is considering whether or not she will need to offer meals on a rotating basis, feeding one group of kids one week, and a different group the next. “I’m being forced to decide which kids go hungry,” Feagin said. Already, she and other school nutrition administrators are more than a month behind in planning summer menus and meals for kids who ultimately may not get guaranteed access to lunch during the week. She doesn’t have the luxury of time to see if Congress can push through the waivers in a later bill, which takes time to draft, negotiate and (maybe) pass. This week, she traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with congressional staff and ask why the waivers were not included. She walked out of the meeting without a lot of answers to take home to Mayfield. On Thursday, back in her office, Feagin said her assistant asked her, “What are we gonna do?” “I don’t know,” Feagin said. WATCH: Congress moves forward on $1.5 trillion ‘mega-bill’ Given everything that families and schools have been through in the past few years, policymakers and lawmakers must focus on how to ease and increase access to nutritious, school-based meals, “strengthening the supports schools have to create those safe, nurturing environments for students,” Stratford said. According to the Food Research and Action Center, children who have access to food are more focused in the classroom – they perform better on tests, earn higher grades and are suspended less frequently. This is especially important as many children will require additional help over the summer to catch up on classroom instruction they did not learn during the coronavirus pandemic. “We need to do more and better to reach these families that need these services,” Stratford said. “It’s hard to believe that the need has reduced.” By — Laura Santhanam Laura Santhanam Laura Santhanam is the Health Reporter and Coordinating Producer for Polling for the PBS NewsHour, where she has also worked as the Data Producer. Follow @LauraSanthanam @LauraSanthanam
School nutrition and child development experts say millions of children in the United States could go hungry as soon as this summer, because the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill moving through Congress this week failed to include waivers that gives schools flexibility in preparing and distributing food to students. That’s even as a growing number of students are expected to need remedial help to overcome learning loss driven by remote classes and quarantine. During the COVID pandemic, Congress authorized the federal Department of Agriculture to grant waivers that covered rising food prices caused by supply chain issues. Those waivers reimbursed schools at higher rates for the cost of school meals and allowed schools to prepare food that families could either pick up or have delivered at or near their homes. These exceptions were crucial for feeding children who relied on school-prepared meals, said Brandon Stratford, a child health and development expert at Child Trends, a national nonprofit research group. According to a February report from the Department of Agriculture, more than 8 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program and 5 million meals were served through the School Breakfast Program in 2021, down from previous year. Those waivers are set to expire on June 30, and school nutrition administrators, like Leah Feagin from Mayfield, Kentucky, don’t know how they are going to feed children in her school district once summer begins. READ MORE: How Maine is trying to take food insecurity off kids’ plates During spring and summer of 2020, while children were not attending school in person, Feagin’s staff showed up to work daily, making meals, knocking on doors and distributing food to students living in homes with active COVID cases. In the community, “we were school nutrition heroes,” Feagin said. Then, a Dec. 10 tornado killed 22 people in the area and leveled much of the town. Fortunately, Feagin said, the school was left virtually intact, and staff returned to prepare meals for students, many of whom had lost their homes. The waivers made that possible, Feagin said. This time of year, she said she and her peers are planning summer meal programs. But supply chain issues have made that work more grueling. Schools are encountering food shortages just like consumers at the grocery store, and staff must follow nutritional guidelines set by the Department of Agriculture. When whole grain breads are simply not available or unaffordable, school nutrition administrators like Feagin have to consider other options, like white bread or flatbreads. The Department of Agriculture has COVID relief funding available, but the department can only allow those meal pattern flexibility waivers if Congress grants them the authority to do so. Even the price for a case of chicken – up from $116 in August to $170 today – has forced Feagin to recalculate how she plans and offers meals to kids who still need food so they are prepared to learn. School nutrition advocates had pushed for an $11 billion provision to be included in the omnibus bill that could have helped cover meal costs and reimbursements – roughly the amount originally slated in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better framework last fall. But the House did not include that priority in the spending package it passed on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that the White House had submitted to Congress its $22 billion supplemental request for COVID relief in the omnibus bill “with not a mention of a nutrition waiver extension,” and that “it was not in the Democrat-led House’s omnibus bill” either. The School Nutrition Association, a national nonprofit that represents more than 50,000 school nutrition administrators who provide meals to students, plans to meet with the Department of Agriculture next week to ask if the federal department considers these waivers to carry no added costs and if that means states can then allow schools to give students meals that they can eat outside of school under these waivers. When Feagin and other school nutrition administrators realized Congress had not granted the Department of Agriculture authority to extend the waivers, Feagin became and remains very concerned. If the waivers expire this summer, she said she is considering whether or not she will need to offer meals on a rotating basis, feeding one group of kids one week, and a different group the next. “I’m being forced to decide which kids go hungry,” Feagin said. Already, she and other school nutrition administrators are more than a month behind in planning summer menus and meals for kids who ultimately may not get guaranteed access to lunch during the week. She doesn’t have the luxury of time to see if Congress can push through the waivers in a later bill, which takes time to draft, negotiate and (maybe) pass. This week, she traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with congressional staff and ask why the waivers were not included. She walked out of the meeting without a lot of answers to take home to Mayfield. On Thursday, back in her office, Feagin said her assistant asked her, “What are we gonna do?” “I don’t know,” Feagin said. WATCH: Congress moves forward on $1.5 trillion ‘mega-bill’ Given everything that families and schools have been through in the past few years, policymakers and lawmakers must focus on how to ease and increase access to nutritious, school-based meals, “strengthening the supports schools have to create those safe, nurturing environments for students,” Stratford said. According to the Food Research and Action Center, children who have access to food are more focused in the classroom – they perform better on tests, earn higher grades and are suspended less frequently. This is especially important as many children will require additional help over the summer to catch up on classroom instruction they did not learn during the coronavirus pandemic. “We need to do more and better to reach these families that need these services,” Stratford said. “It’s hard to believe that the need has reduced.”