Foodshare

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Community Eligibility Continues to Grow

The Community Eligibility Provision allows high-needs schools and districts with high concentrations of low-income students to offer free meals to all students, and eliminates the need for household school meal applications. In the 2016–2017 school year, the third year of the program’s availability nationwide, the number of participating high-needs schools continues to grow.

More than 9.7 million children in 20,721 schools and 3,538 school districts are participating and have access to breakfast and lunch at no charge each school day through community eligibility. This represents an increase of 2,500 schools and 1.2 million children over the 2015–2016 school year.

In Connecticut, 21 of the 46 school districts eligible to participate in the program (45.7%) are doing so, just about the national average. Over 75% of the schools in those participating districts are providing free meals to all, well above the national rate (54.7%).


Source: Food Research Action Council, 3/27, Community Eligibility

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