Education Week is reporting that “Some conservative activists and policymakers want to restrict or eliminate a policy that’s made it easier for schools to serve free meals to all students.”
(Woodley Wonder Works via Flickr Creative Commons)The article discusses the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows all students at a school to receive free breakfasts and lunches when 25 percent of students would qualify automatically based on their participation in certain government assistance programs. According to the US Department of Agriculture’s website, 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,” the department writes. “Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).”
However, although President-elect Donald Trump has not introduced any specific policy initiatives in K-12 education, some conservative policy experts have called for eliminating the CEP, particularly those experts who co-wrote Project 2025.
“Federal school meals should be focused on children in need, and any efforts to expand student eligibility for federal school meals to include all K–12 students should be soundly rejected,” Project 2025 says. “Such expansion would allow an inefficient, wasteful program to grow, magnifying the amount of wasted taxpayer resources.”
Some experts feel that the CEP could better reach out to high-need students. They worry that it also benefits students and families who might not need it, which could lead to unnecessary tax dollars being spent.
Although Mr Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, several contributors to the 900-page strategy plan have been given important posts in his incoming administration.
About half of the nation’s 100,000 public schools participating in the National School Lunch Program provide free meals for all their students through the CEP or state law. The eligibility rate was initially set at 40 percent, but a rule from the Biden administration lowered it to 25 percent in September 2023.
The article only speculates about what might happen to the CEP; it does not cite any sources in the incoming Trump administration or provide any specific policy direction. For example, it notes that Mr Trump’s choice of agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, has yet to state a position on the CEP.
