State Laws Leveraging the Community Eligibility Provision to Build Healthy School Meals for All: A Content Analysis

Abstract

Background: Federal child nutrition programs are a key part of the nutrition safety net, but cost serves as a key participation barrier for students. This can also lead to meal debt for schools when students are unable to pay for the meals they take. The US Department of Agriculture Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) seeks to address these challenges by providing free meals to all students within lower-income schools or school districts. Whereas pandemic-related waivers provided universal school meals nationwide, once the waivers expired, states were again confronted with meal participation barriers. Objective: To examine the prevalence of state laws addressing CEP and universal school meals. Design: Content analysis. State laws effective as of December 31, 2023, were obtained from commercial legal databases and coded using an ordinal coding scheme as part of the National Cancer Institute's Classification of Laws Associated with School Students system. Participants/setting: Statutes and regulations were collected in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Main outcome measures: Measures included degree to which laws provided access to free breakfast and/or lunch, reporting requirements for school/district CEP compliance/implementation, waivers from expanded meal access requirements based on feasibility, additional reimbursement to provide free meals, and temporary funding or programs with funding contingencies. Statistical analyses performed: Percent agreement and kappa statistics assessed the interrater reliability of the coding scheme. Descriptive statistics were computed to examine the prevalence of specific items in state laws. Results: Mean percent agreement was 97% and mean kappa was 0.856 across the items coded. Thirty states’ laws aimed to reduce the cost burden of school breakfast and/or lunch through the use of CEP and/or other universal meal initiatives. Specific to lunch policy, 12 states’ laws mandated that when students qualify for reduced-priced lunch, they must be served a lunch at no cost. Other laws varied based on identified student percentage—the percent of students directly certified as eligible for free meals through participation in other means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; 1 state's law mandated CEP participation at identified student percentage above 40%, 2 states’ laws at identified student percentage of 40%, and 10 states’ laws required universal free lunch. Conclusions: Federal programs such as CEP can be used by states to leverage all available funding to help feed children. State laws can act as a springboard toward broader healthy school meals for all initiatives.