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Six months into schools' pandemic-driven experiment in distance learning, much has been said (and debated) about whether children are learning. But the more urgent question, for the more than 30 million kids who depend on U.S. schools for free or reduced-price meals, is this:
Are they eating?
The answer, based on recent data and interviews with school nutrition leaders and anti-hunger advocates across the country, is alarming.
Among low-income households with children who qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, only about 15% have been getting those meals, said Lauren Bauer, a researcher at the Brookings Institution. She's been poring over the results of the U.S. Census Bureau's weekly Household Pulse Survey.
Anecdotally, school nutrition directors across the country tell a similar story.
"Every day I worry about them. Every day," said Alyssia Wright, executive director of Fulton County Schools' nutrition program in Fulton County, Ga. "We come up with ways every week to find a new way to get meals to our kids."
Because the old ways, from just a few months ago, aren't working anymore.
Before COVID-19, Arizona's Tucson Unified School District served roughly 35,000 meals a day. So far this school year, according to Lindsay Aguilar, the district's food services director, that number has plummeted by nearly 90%.
The drop is "disheartening," Aguilar said, "because in our district, 70% of our families qualify for free or reduced-price meals. So I know there's a need."
In Charlotte, N.C., school leaders have seen "a huge difference" in meal distribution, said Reggie Ross, who works for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and heads the national School Nutrition Association. So far this year, Ross said, school meals in Charlotte "were down about 89%."
In many districts, the majority of children who qualify for subsidized school meals aren't getting them — often because they can't get to them. And some districts said their meal-service budgets are being stretched so much by the pandemic that they could soon face cuts and layoffs.
Right now, Bauer said, about a third of U.S. families with children are suffering from food insecurity. "More alarmingly, 1 in 5 families say that the children themselves don't have sufficient food, and the families don't have enough resources to purchase more."
For some children, school meals may be the only ones they get in a day. And with school feeding programs reaching fewer and fewer families, Bauer worries that "children are going hungry."
The challenge: "Parents are back at work"
When schools closed for remote learning in the spring, most districts quickly shifted into a familiar model of food distribution: their summer plan. Under this model, districts chose a handful of schools, in neighborhoods with the greatest need, where families could drop by each day, often between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., and pick up a bag with lunch and often breakfast.
The Coronavirus Crisis Schools Race To Feed Students Amid Coronavirus Closures
Pickup during the pandemic has been incredibly easy, thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's willingness to forgo traditional, school-year paperwork. If a child wants a meal, that child gets a meal, and the school gets compensated by USDA whether that meal goes to an eligible student, a younger sibling or a kid from the nearby private school.
In late August, USDA announced it would extend that flexibility through the end of the year to "ensure meals are reaching all children – whether they are learning in the classroom or virtually — so they are fed and ready to learn," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said.
Perdue's announcement was cheered by school leaders across the country, but they said a major hurdle remains: This food pickup model still requires families to come to a designated site at a designated time. And many can't. Often, parents and caregivers have to work and can't get away in the middle of the day. Or they don't have a way to get to the designated pickup site. Or they're not comfortable making daily food runs in a pandemic.
