March 21, 2024
The Food Research & Action Center’s (FRAC) recently released report, The Reach of School Breakfast and Lunch During the 2022–2023 School Year, reveals that just over 14.3 million children received a school breakfast, and 28.1 million children received a school lunch on an average day during the 2022–2023 school year — a decrease of 1.2 million children in breakfast, and 1.8 million children in lunch compared to the 2021–2022 school year.
For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, school breakfast and lunch returned to normal operations for the 2022–2023 school year.
Many districts had to return to the tiered eligibility system that required them to collect, process, and verify school meal applications, and millions of children lost access to the free school meals that were available beginning in the spring of 2020 through the 2021–2022 school year.
Although it will take years to understand the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and their families, the end of the pandemic-era waivers that allowed schools to offer meals to all children at no charge had an immediate impact on school meal participation during the 2022–2023 school year.
Key findings include:
- Just over 14.3 million children participated in school breakfast in the 2022–2023 school year on an average school day, with 11.3 million receiving a free or reduced-price breakfast.
- Just over 28.1 million children participated in school lunch in the 2022–2023 school year on an average school day, with 19.7 million receiving a free or reduced-price lunch.
- School breakfast decreased by 1.2 million children, and school lunch decreased by 1.8 million children, with the end of the pandemic-era waivers that allowed schools to offer meals to all students at no charge.
- The states that had increases in school meal participation in the 2022–2023 school year continued to offer meals to all students at no charge in all or a significant number of their schools.
The data is clear: Healthy School Meals for All policies and maximizing participation in Community Eligibility Provision are important strategies to ensure access to school meals. This combined with proven best practices for increasing participation — such as implementing innovative breakfast models, ensuring enough time to eat, and serving high-quality, appealing meals – is the path forward to ensure all children have access to the nutritious school meals they need to learn and thrive.
The return to normal school meal operations, and its impact on participation, highlight the need for policymakers, advocates, and schools to bolster efforts and recommit to ensuring that school breakfast and school lunch are accessible to every child every school day.
