When families struggle to put food on the table, the impact reaches far beyond their homes; it reaches into our schools. The recent halt of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits has left many parents worried about how to feed their children and provide a balanced meal. For students who rely on free or price-reduced school meals, these changes could mean facing hunger during the school day and at home. Many schools step in to provide meals for those in need, but the potential overlap between SNAP cuts and free meals during school caused people to wonder how this might affect the students who depend on both.
SNAP is a federal program that provides food assistance to low-income families and individuals via a debit-like card called EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer). This program aimed to reduce hunger and malnutrition; also, this became more than a helping hand for many families in the U.S.; it became a backbone. They are needed not only to provide a healthy diet for any citizens in need of an extra push, but families that struggle enough just to make ends meet whether it be after paying bills, shopping for clothes, gas or any other necessity depending on that family–but to raise their children in a healthy and reliable environment, taking the weight of buying hundreds dollars worth of groceries off of hard working and struggling parents.
Even with all the benefits that come with SNAP, the program still has its flaws. SNAP is meant to supplement food costs, not everything. That sounds helpful, and it truly is for some, but with rising food prices, along with the expense of other utilities, less money is available. And there are many cases where families run out of SNAP funds before the month even ends, leaving them to ration what money they have left, which leaves some parents to depend on school breakfast and lunch. With the pause on SNAP, parents worry about whether their children will still get their benefits or not.
“We use information we get from the Department of Health and Human Services to directly certify students for free meals within the district. They have their qualifications to determine if a family is eligible for SNAP benefits; they send that data over to us via an NXL file that we get, and from there, we certify those students without their parents having to fill out an income certification. The pause in SNAP won’t lead us to decertify students. So if they have a change in income that no longer qualifies them or family circumstances change, we will not decertify them; they will have benefits for the full school year,” free and reduced program coordinator Jennifer Castaneda said.
To understand how this impacts schools and their students, the districts look at the percentage of students in SNAP households. If it reaches a certain percentage, the number decides whether a school can provide free lunches for every student without extra paperwork.
“Schools have to have over 40% [of kids on SNAP] to qualify for free and reduced school lunches for everyone without applications, which some schools in our area do, but West Forsyth specifically had about 38%. West was able to do that during the time we had additional funding through COVID, which the district provided for many schools, but you know, that’s been gone for about two years now. So, we are about 38% which is lower than the district average, which is roughly 48% to 52%, which is a significant number,” Social worker Rebecca Oshige said.
Plenty of parents in the district are on SNAP, and even out of it. Sending their child to school and knowing they are getting free food throughout the day can be a comfort. It takes the stress of having a starving child coming home to a household scarce of nutritious food, and this is something that staff members recognize.
“I can see how it can be a concern–if a family is relying on SNAP and they aren’t getting that money, it could mean that students are coming to school hungry. That in particular can be a concern, like when we have holidays coming up because a lot of families have food insecurity, meaning it is difficult for them to manage to have enough food for everyone; a lot of times they are relying on breakfast and lunch to help supplement that,” Oshigie said.
Even with all these concerns, staff say that SNAP pauses are not the biggest one. Instead, they are paying more attention to the current government shutdown and how that may affect their funding for providing free lunches more than SNAP cuts would, which, in turn, would create more pressure on already limited resources.
“The cutting of SNAP benefits does not directly affect how we give out free breakfast or food to kids; the cutting of other government funding would, the government’s pause on USCA. The USCA is required to have an emergency fund, but that will eventually run out, and if that were to run out before the government begins to run again, then it could affect our school nutrition funds, but as of now, there is nothing to worry about,” said Castaneda.
With SNAP having no direct effects on schools providing free and reduced meals, hopefully, this serves as a sense of relief for the many parents who are unfortunately no longer receiving SNAP funds. Despite the struggles hard-working parents may face, schools are always working towards being a safe place for their children. No decertifying, no re-filling forms. If there are ever any other concerns, Rebecca Oshige is available for students to talk to.
