More WNC schools are taking advantage of free meal programs for students

Hungry kids can’t learn. That’s one thing Heather Smith has learned in nearly a decade as a teacher.

“I truly believe that they have a hard time focusing if they’re worried about when their next meal is coming or if they don’t have energy,” says Smith, an eighth-grade math teacher at Waynesville Middle School. “Math is already a hard subject to focus on, but imagine being hungry during my class.”

So Smith was excited when all schools in Haywood County started participating in the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program last school year. Under CEP, the district makes free breakfasts and lunches available to all students, regardless of family income. The federal government reimburses districts for much of the meal costs.

“This is my 25th year in school nutrition, and this is something that we’ve been lobbying for and fighting for ever since I came into the program,” says Alison Francis, director of nutrition for Haywood County Schools.

Several other local systems started participating districtwide in the CEP last school year, including Buncombe, Madison, Polk and Transylvania counties. Schools in Henderson and Jackson counties offer the program at some schools. The Asheville City Schools district does not participate.

According to nutrition officials from the school districts, 75% of Haywood County students participated in the free lunch program at least once last year, while 37% participated in the free breakfast program; in Buncombe County, the numbers were 73% for lunch and 53% for breakfast.

Balanced meals

School district officials cite many reasons for embracing the CEP program, including its emphasis on nutritious food.

“We have fresh fruits and vegetables for the students every day,” Francis says. “The majority of kids don’t have really healthy options that they’re bringing from home.”

Under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines, participating students must be offered at least four food items for breakfast and five for lunch. They are required to choose at least three for each meal, one of which must be a fruit or vegetable.

Meal options also include meats, meat alternatives, grains and 1% milk.

“I’m able to provide a well-balanced meal,” says Lisa Payne, Buncombe County’s school nutrition director. “It supports them learning, it supports better behavior. I think it’s the foundation for everything they need to be able to learn.”

She admits not every kid is happy about having to take a fruit or vegetable — they are kids, after all. “But we find that once they take it, they usually eat it because they don’t really want to waste it. So we’re able to teach them the benefits [of healthy food], and they may even really enjoy it.”

She adds, “The cheesy broccoli is amazing.”

The free meals also must meet USDA guidelines on fat, saturated fat, sugar, sodium and other nutritional standards.

In addition to offering the free meals, the schools sell à la carte snack items and other food.

“If they want just a chicken sandwich, or just a milk, or just something else to supplement the lunch that they brought from home, they would have to pay for that,” Francis explains.

No more debt

In addition to the nutritional benefits, the free lunches also help relieve the financial burden on families that previously had to pay for lunches. That’s especially true of students whose families fall just short of qualifying for federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), says Alecia Sanders of School Meals for All NC. The coalition of groups is trying to secure funding for every district in the state to offer free lunch and breakfast to every student.

“One in five students in North Carolina are going hungry or are food insecure,” says Sanders, “and 28% of those are not eligible for these programs, so there is a huge gap. Often they’re going hungry or they’re charging to their accounts and are racking up meal debt.”

Even families that aren’t food insecure welcome the free meals, officials say.

Before last year, for example, Haywood County charged $3.50 for elementary school lunches and $3.75 for middle and high school lunches. “If you’ve got multiple kids, it adds up quick over five days a week,” Francis says. “This takes a little bit of the burden off of their wallets.”

What districts are eligible?

Under USDA rules, school districts are eligible to participate in the CEP if 25% of enrolled students meet certain criteria. The federal government refers to that figure as the identified student percentage (ISP). Before October 2023, the ISP threshold was 40% for a district that wanted to participate.

Criteria that make students eligible include participation in federal programs like SNAP and TANF, participation in a Head Start program, homelessness, and status as runaway, foster or migrant child.

This year, Haywood County’s ISP is 54.68%, while Buncombe’s is 42.92%.

While the lowered ISP threshold makes more districts eligible, it hasn’t had a huge impact on the number who participate, says Sanders. That’s because reimbursement from the federal government is determined by the ISP; the lower the number, the less cost is reimbursed, and districts have to make up the difference. Some simply can’t afford it.

To determine how much reimbursement a district gets, the government multiplies the ISP by 1.6, she explains. So, for example,  if a district has an ISP of 25%, only 40% of that would be reimbursed, which means the school nutrition program would still be responsible for most of the other 60%.

As a result, most districts that participate tend to have an ISP near or above 50%, she says.

Haywood County’s ISP means that 87% of meals will be reimbursed at the full rate this year, Francis says. The sale of à la carte items will help pay for much of the rest of the cost.

But while the lower threshold didn’t have that much of an impact in North Carolina, another decision by the USDA did. Starting in 2022, the department allowed the state to add Medicaid to the list of programs that count toward a district’s ISP.

“We saw a huge increase in districts that were participating in CEP due to that,” Sanders says.

Eliminating stress

Waynesville Middle School teacher Smith is not in the classroom this year. As the 2024-25 North Carolina Teacher of the Year, she is spending the school year advocating for causes that are important to teachers, including school nutrition.

Through the Carolina Hunger Initiative, one of the sponsors of her award, Smith made a connection with School Meals for All NC. She joined the coalition’s Champions program and, in May, represented teachers at a coalition-led town hall at Western Carolina University.

The free meals program has been a success at Waynesville Middle, she says.

“Middle school is one of those places where kids don’t want to draw negative attention towards themselves,” Smith says. “When they’re all on this level playing field, all our kids feel safe and feel like they can go get that meal without putting their family in danger of being in debt.”

She recalls the school’s cafeteria staff delivering free breakfasts to her classroom before students took a three-hour end-of-term standardized test last school year.

“They came to school on time on those testing days because they knew they were going to be seated, relaxed, and eating a breakfast before they took a very stressful test,” she says. “That was just so powerful to me.”