By Asyah Zamani and Tyler Webb | Special To The Observer
Maria Jacobo, the Food Services Lead at Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, has seen three times as many students at her school eating a school-provided breakfast since coming back from covid lockdowns, thanks to universal free meals and fresh food quality.
“It increased our numbers because by having that avocado, the kids were coming every single day. They’re still asking, like, ‘When are we having that back?’” Jacobo said.
School nutrition officials across the region are saying the same thing: They have seen an increase in meal counts since California’s Universal Meals Program was implemented.
In the school year of 2022-2023, California was the first state to start a Universal Meals Program in schools for elementary, middle, and high school students regardless of their eligibility, according to the California Department of Education.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year allocates another $106 million a year to fully fund the program, along with a one-time, $150 million expenditure to improve school kitchen equipment and infrastructure.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nutrition from school meals is associated with better academic outcomes, including better attendance rates and better test scores.
Data from the US Census Bureau shows that, among all race groups, Black public school students consistently have the highest rates of participation in free and reduced-cost school meals. This indicates that Black students are more likely to experience food insecurity and benefit from programs like the Universal Meals Program.
In the past, only students from families with little money could get free or reduced lunch. Getting free lunch required filling out paperwork and carried a stigma. Today, lunch is free for everybody.
“If meal counts are up, then it’s working. You’re reducing the stigma, generating more revenue, and we’re serving more kids,” said Kelsey Nederveld, director of nutrition services at Central Kitchen, the food production facility for Sacramento City Unified School District.
Nederveld, who has worked for the district for 12 years, said that she is starting to see changes in how students and employees think about free meals. She said that staff no longer have to deal with meal applications, and that younger students in second or third grade have never had to pay for meals due to the Universal Meals Program.
Nederveld said that the program has changed student perception by leading to a reduction in stigma surrounding free meals.
“It’s no longer for the free kids, right? Anyone can get breakfast and lunch at no cost. And so, I do believe that that has definitely reduced the stigma of school meals, but our role and our mission at the Central Kitchen, one of them, is to really change the perception of school meals,” Nederveld said.
The Universal Meals Program allows schools to spend the savings from administrative costs and new revenue on crucial improvements to food services designed to increase meal counts.
Nederveld said the program allowed for the district to purchase a food truck for distributing meals to schools with low participation, particularly with breakfast meals.
“Being able to get breakfast or lunch off of a food truck is not normally common practice. And so, it really entices those kids,” Nederveld said. “It creates a different dynamic for them and a different experience, getting food off of a food truck as opposed to off of a cafeteria food service line.”
Other school districts in the area have adopted similar methods to improve student participation in school meals. Michelle Drake, Director of Food and Nutrition Services for the Elk Grove Unified School District, said that the use of an electric vehicle food cart has also increased meal counts at Elk Grove High School.
And like Nederveld, Drake said that increased access to school meals has led to increased student interest and reduced stigma.
Drake said before the Universal Meals Program, there were always issues with children who were stressed out because they did not have lunch money with them and they did not have access to a meal.
“It’s hard to tell a second grader that they can’t have lunch today,” Drake said. “By no fault of their own, they may not have lunch money, not have food from home, not have an application completed – these are not issues a second grader should have to worry about.”
Drake said that when student participation and the meal count increases, schools are reimbursed for expenses. And the Universal Meals Program allows schools to focus more funding on staffing and nutrition improvements.
“I have 435 contracted positions that support the preparation and service of meals to the students in Elk Grove Unified School District,” Drake said. “These positions vary from freshly preparing food at our central kitchen or secondary schools to the service with a smile served at all of our schools.”
“That extra money that’s coming in allows us to use that to hire employees. And the majority of our cost goes to labor,” Drake said. “The extra funds help with labor, it helps with fresh quality food. The state has put an investment into school meals, and so we have been able to purchase more fresh and local ingredients.”
Drake said the foods that are being served to students for breakfast and lunch are healthy and nutritious school meals.
“We provide choice, we scratch cook or use minimally processed as much as we can, we have gotten rid of all dyes so we don’t have food dyes in our food, we pay attention to calories, sodium, trans fat, saturated fat, we’re looking at sugars,” Drake said.
Drake said that she’s had parents tell her that they appreciate the fact that meals are free and what it does for their family’s budget.
“I think that just the impact that it has to the family and then the ability to have a healthy body, healthy mind, if you’re eating healthy, you’re going to have a greater opportunity to learn,” Drake said.
“Without those funds I would never have brought avocados in,” Drake said. “That builds what our children eat, it builds the community around students and their families, it creates more jobs in the Central Valley or anywhere in California for farmers that we’re buying from. So, it keeps California moving forward, right?”
Charles Douglas, the Nutrition Services Director at Rocklin Unified School District, said he has also been able to purchase more nutritious food for students.
“Because we get a bigger reimbursement, I’m able to spend a little bit more. And so, just to give you an example, we’ll do grass-fed burgers as opposed to frozen patties,” Douglas said.
Prior to the Universal Meals Program, many students could not afford to buy school meals. One positive change that Douglas has seen since the program was implemented is the ending of student meal debt.
“You had instances where food service workers were actually taking the meal out of the child’s hand and throwing it away,” Douglas said. “Student meal debt is gone, families benefit from grocery bills, so to speak. You know, if they eat two meals or whatever, they can just pack them a light snack or something like that and you know that they’re gonna get taken care of at school.”
Caroline Danielson, Vice President of Research and Senior Fellow from the Public Policy Institute of California, said the school meals program is advantageous for students and particularly low income students.
“It helps to alleviate pressure on family budgets so they could choose those food dollars for other purposes, maybe for other meals, maybe for rent, transportation costs,” Danielson said.
“If families have that money freed up so they’re not packing lunch for their student, they have a little more money to put towards other necessities, so it helps to alleviate poverty, not just hunger,” she said.
Produced for The Observer by Sacramento State journalism students under the guidance of nationally known data expert Phillip Reese.
Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.