Child nutrition waivers, changes in the upcoming school year
Since March 2020, school nutrition programs across the United States have been operating under relaxed standards due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) specifically waived regulations to allow:
all schools can enroll in free lunch programs, regardless of household incomes,
school meals to be offered in the classroom or packaged to take home and eat,
flexibilities in the number of fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins offered in meals,
schools to receive more money for each meal served.
IN RICHMOND
These waivers and flexibilities offered by the federal government allowed Richmond Public Schools (RPS) to offer vended, grab & go meals for all students. RPS’s use of the federal waivers led to low quality (frozen or molded) items and meals being served to middle and high school students without enough calories to meet federal nutritional requirements. Images taken by students of their meals went viral, while parents were reporting having to spend more money on food at home since their children were not eating at school. This went on for months at the start of this school year, as students returned to in-person learning after 16 months of pandemic closures.
The actions of RPS this past school year do not align with the nutrition goals stated in the Dreams4RPS strategic plan nor the previous work completed to increase scratch cooking and workforce development opportunities while improving nutritional quality of meals for students. All eyes are on the school board who will vote in the coming weeks on an updated contract with a meal vendor. Follow along by checking out our regular School Health Advisory Board (SHAB) update in the newsletter (subscribe at the bottom).
BACK AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL
Congress recently passed a spending bill that does not include the funding for those waivers that schools have been utilizing. However, Child Nutrition Programs did get an increase in funding for grants to support kitchen equipment and school breakfast expansions. These investments are in alignment with Dreams4RPS and we look forward to seeing how RPS administration leverages these opportunities.