How Would Project 2025 Change Funding for Meals in Schools?
As a secondary school teacher, I witnessed firsthand that a hungry child has difficulty learning. Indeed, a pre-pandemic survey of teachers revealed the same perspective:
- 80% observed the negative impact of hunger on concentration
- 76% saw decreased academic performance
- 62% saw behavioral issues increased
- 47% noticed children getting sick more often (1).
But Project 2025, the conservative social plan limiting the federal partnership with states, intends to seriously curtail and eventually eliminate recent programs available to address student hunger (2).
In the school year 2022-23, California became the first state to implement a statewide Universal Meals Program for school children. Mandated by California Education Code Section 49501.5, the program funds school breakfasts and lunches in K-12 in line with the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Since it was adopted under the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, CEP stipulates that eligibility for school food programs depends upon community need as a whole and precludes households from applying individually for subsidies.
CEP allows schools with a student population meeting a 25 percent direct certification threshold (students enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or identified as foster, homeless, or migrant) to provide free meals to all students utilizing federal reimbursement on a sliding scale.
According to the Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools, all county schools currently qualify under CEP, and all children are eligible to receive breakfast and lunch. Roughly 47 percent of the funding comes from the federal government, with the remaining 53 percent provided by the state. Tuolumne County furnished 839,618 school meals in the 2022-23 school year.
Lily Klam, Director of Education Policy for First Focus on Children, observes, “They [Project 2025] propose taking away students’ access to summer meals and preschool lunches. They propose deregulating baby formula, eliminating Head Start, getting rid of the Department of Education, privatizing public school funds, and defunding Title 1 over a 10-year period, which is the largest source of federal education funding (3).”
Project 2025 claims these policies will protect children, but they would increase child hunger and decrease educational opportunity. Project 2025 specifies that federal funding would shift to state and local governments, but even then, a parent should have the right to utilize 90 percent of that funding for private school vouchers. The result of such a shift would be less funding received by public schools overall, hitting low-income communities the hardest.
Take Action
- Organize a social media campaign on the importance of meals to children who live at a poverty level.
- Speak at school board meetings for policies that protect school meals.
- Volunteer and donate to the Jamestown Family Resource Center, which connects families to basic needs, food, clothing, and shelter.
- Participate in the Mother Lode Food Project (previously known as the Green Bag Food Project). This project is a non-stop food donor drive. The goal is to ensure that neighbors-in-need have a year-round supply of food, not just during the holidays. All food stays local! The food project currently works with Nancy’s Hope, Interfaith, and the Jamestown Family Resource Center.
- Share personal experiences or stories of students impacted by the cuts to school meals as a letter to the editor or as an article to Engage Tuolumne.
NOTES
- “How Does Hunger Affect Learning?” No Kid Hungry, Share Our Strength, April 24, 2023.
- “Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” The Heritage Foundation, April 21, 2023, pp. 299-303.
- Lily Klam, “How Project 2025 Would Destabilize Public Education,” First Focus on Children, July 24, 2024.
- “California Universal Meals,” California Department of Education,” updated April 24, 2025.