Thousands of Students Could Lose Free School Meals if SNAP Changes
July 23, 2019
By: Evie Blad
Source: Education Week
A Trump administration plan to tighten eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could have a secondary effect: hundreds of thousands of children losing automatic eligibility for free school lunches, child hunger groups warn. The proposal, announced Tuesday, would curb broad-based categorical eligibility, an provision that allows states to streamline the application process SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, for families who participate in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Children in families who participate in SNAP are “directly certified” for participation in federally subsidized free school meal programs without filling out a separate application, a move that cuts red tape that can prevent participation, those groups say. In addition, schools where large number of students are directly certified in free meal programs, through participation in SNAP or other federal anti-poverty programs, may provide universal free meals to all students through a federal provision called community eligibility.
Tightening up SNAP qualifications could cause about 265,000 students to lose eligibility for free meals, said Lisa Davis, the senior vice president of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign, in testimony before the House agriculture committee’s subcommittee on nutrition in June.