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The longest government shutdown in history put Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in jeopardy<\/a> for weeks, and even after legislators reached an agreement to reopen the government, it took two weeks<\/a> or more<\/a> in some states to get funds to recipients. While the reopening of the government and the plan to fund it through September 2026 has kept SNAP safe for now, it is a temporary relief for many families and students based on changes to the program coming down the road. As the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act\u201d includes<\/a> even deeper funding cuts in the future, millions of children who depend on free and reduced-price meals may soon find that their most dependable food source is at risk.<\/p>\n Emily Gutierrez, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, says the connection between SNAP and school meals is direct and powerful.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSNAP influences student access to free school meals in two ways,\u201d she tells The Progressive<\/em>. \u201cSchools use SNAP participation to directly certify students for free meals, removing the need for those households to submit applications. Those same participation numbers also determine whether entire districts qualify for universal free meals through the Community Eligibility Provision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), schools or districts with a high percentage of low-income students can offer free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of household income. Created in 2014 under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act<\/a>, CEP was designed to expand access to school meals in high-poverty communities by allowing schools to serve all students at no cost when enough children are \u201cdirectly certified\u201d\u2014meaning they automatically qualify for free meals because their families participate in programs like SNAP or Medicaid. Schools use the share of these directly certified students, known as the Identified Student Percentage (ISP), to determine both eligibility and reimbursement levels under CEP.<\/p>\n When families lose or temporarily stop receiving SNAP, a district\u2019s ISP declines, which can reduce federal reimbursement rates or limit a district\u2019s ability to offer universal free meals, Gutierrez explains. \u201cIn some cases, schools could lose their universal free-meal program altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n If reimbursements decline, districts must choose between cutting menu options, reducing staff, or reinstating paid lunch lines. But bringing back paid lines recreates a visible divide between students who can afford meals and those who rely on free or reduced-price lunch, reviving the stigma CEP was designed to eliminate.<\/p>\n According to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research organization, 7.5 million<\/a> students could lose individual access to free meals if federal funding for SNAP falters, and sixteen million students in thirty-seven states and Washington, D.C. could be at risk of losing their school\u2019s universal-meal status.\u00a0<\/p>\n The numbers reveal what\u2019s at stake. SNAP currently supports about one in eight Americans, and children account for nearly 40 percent<\/a> of recipients. The average benefit of roughly $187 per person per month is small but critical: Losing it forces some families to stretch already-thin budgets<\/a>, trading off groceries for rent, gas, or medicine. Each SNAP dollar generates<\/a> about $1.54 in local economic activity, so benefit delays and cuts ripple beyond households to grocery stores, local farms, and the school cafeterias that depend on stable reimbursements.<\/p>\n Across the country, schools and community organizations scrambled to fill the gap left by the funding delay.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe same day it was announced that SNAP benefits would be cut off for November, at least five or six families reached out to me, worried because they rely on those benefits to put food on the table,\u201d says Marcellis Wilburn, a school counselor with the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) in Washington, D.C. \u201cNaturally, they wanted to know what the school was going to do to help support them.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilburn says he helped families navigate the changes while also feeling their uncertainty himself. \u201cI just got off SNAP last month, so this is new for me, too,\u201d he explains. \u201cEven as I share all these resources with families, there\u2019s still an equity concern, how accessible they really are.\u201d Many of the resources filling the gaps, such as church food drives or neighborhood pantries, require travel across the city, which can be difficult for families without transportation.<\/p>\n The effects extend beyond hunger. \u201cI\u2019ve seen more students asking for food or needing clean uniforms,\u201d Wilburn says. \u201cOne parent told me, \u2018I\u2019m focused on feeding my kids. I\u2019m not focused on washing clothes.\u2019 \u201d Those realities, he says, reveal how food insecurity quickly snowballs into other areas of student well-being.<\/p>\n In Washington, D.C., the school district has tried to respond systemically. Wilburn says the district has recently circulated a five-page \u201cliving document\u201d of resources internally that schools can share with families. It includes food distribution sites, housing assistance, mental-health support, and even upcoming job-training opportunities. The resource hub is updated several times a week to reflect new community offerings.<\/p>\n In California, community schools have become emergency food hubs. At Ayer Elementary School in Fresno Unified School District, more than 500 people showed up<\/a> for a monthly food distribution meant to serve 150. In the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, students in Kinney High School\u2019s culinary-arts program prepared fifty family-size pasta dinners for households facing SNAP delays.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other districts nationwide have also expanded their reach, coming together to give families food. Los Angeles Unified School District and San Francisco Unified School District are offering<\/a> a third daily meal through their Supper Programs<\/a>, allowing any child under eighteen to participate, even if they aren\u2019t enrolled in the district. In Oakland, the Public Education Fund launched a rapid-response fundraising drive that raised more than $15,000 in its first days to stock school pantries and purchase groceries for families. In Connecticut, Norwalk Public Schools was already stretching its capacity before the shutdown to fill gaps in food security because of inconsistent federal support. The district kept<\/a> its free-meals-for-all program afloat through a $200,000 community donation\u2014showing that the need for stable, universal school meal funding long predates this crisis.<\/p>\n In New York, legislators have approved<\/a> a universal \u201cSchool Meals for All\u201d policy beginning in the 2025-26 school year, while in Oregon, youth advocates working with FoodCorps are urging <\/a>state lawmakers to pass a similar law that would provide free meals for all students starting in 2026-27.<\/p>\n For families, even a brief loss or delay of SNAP is immediate and severe. SNAP benefits are calculated on the assumption that low-income households can already spend 30 percent of their net monthly income on food, with SNAP making up only the remaining gap. The average household receives about $330 per month in SNAP benefits, so when that support disappears, even if temporarily, families can lose hundreds of dollars they were counting on, with no flexibility in already strained budgets.<\/p>\n Nationwide, more than 22 million<\/a> households depend on SNAP. Analysts estimate<\/a> that 5.3 million of them could lose at least $25 per month if proposed cuts in the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act\u201d advance; many would lose more than $140.<\/p>\n \u201cProviding free meals for all students helps them feel safer and that school is a welcoming place,\u201d Gutierrez says. \u201cWhen those programs disappear, stigma returns. Older students may skip meals rather than fill out forms. For food-insecure kids, that means going hungry, and hunger affects attendance and achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as federal benefits stall, several states are showing what long-term stability in access to food for students can look like. California, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico have enacted laws guaranteeing<\/a> free breakfast and lunch to every K-12 student.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese states show what happens when school meals are decoupled from fragile federal eligibility systems,\u201d Gutierrez says. \u201cThey\u2019ve built stability into the model.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Food Research & Action Center\u2019s 2025 State Advocacy Guide outlines<\/a> how coalitions uniting educators, parents, and bipartisan lawmakers achieved widespread support for \u201cHealthy School Meals for All.\u201d In states that have adopted universal-meal laws, educators report<\/a> higher attendance, and fewer<\/a> disciplinary referrals.<\/p>\n Gutierrez urges policymakers to watch state school-nutrition budgets: Stagnant funding now is a signal of deeper trouble ahead.<\/p>\n SNAP is not simply an anti-poverty program; it is the foundation of the nation\u2019s school-meal system. When benefits shrink or stop, the cafeteria becomes a frontline of inequality. Universal meal programs were created to remove stigma and guarantee dignity. When those systems falter, families skip meals, teachers manage hunger in classrooms, and communities scramble to compensate for federal inaction. \u201cThese aren\u2019t abstract accounting changes,\u201d Gutierrez says. \u201cThey\u2019re real pressures that affect how children experience school, and who gets to feel safe and fed there.\u201d<\/p>\n If Congress and federal agencies do not act swiftly to stabilize SNAP funding, public schools may soon stand as the last reliable source of daily nourishment for millions of children.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The longest government shutdown in history put Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in jeopardy for weeks, and even after legislators reached an agreement to reopen the government, it took two weeks or more in some states to get funds to recipients. While the reopening of the government and the plan to fund it through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12022],"tags":[91489,22514,2481,9283,21131,8605,23788,148324,13732,2373,16306],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-320806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activist","tag-brianna-nargiso-newton","tag-filling","tag-future","tag-gap","tag-hunger","tag-leaves","tag-politics-government","tag-public-schools-advocate","tag-schools","tag-snap","tag-uncertain"],"yoast_head":"\n