Views of COVID-19 School Meal Provision
In order to prevent transmission of COVID-19, school districts halted in-person learning, disrupting school meal programs, which are key to reducing food insecurity. Despite these disruptions, food service staff persevered and districts leveraged waivers released by the US Department of Agriculture, to continue to feed students who were engaged in remote or hybrid learning.
Read the full study here.
It is important to understand how disruptions to school meal programs due to COVID-19 school closures affected parents, food service directors, school administrators, and other community stakeholders.
Goals
The goals of this study are to:
Explore best practices and challenges in providing school meals during COVID-19 in a low-income, predominantly Latino region.
Use study study findings to inform policy and shape school meal programming for future school meal closures due to other disasters and during vacations and summer months.
evaluation Methods
Qualitative data collection occurred from June to August 2020 across six school districts in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Interviews were conducted with school district officials, including food service directors and school superintendents, and community partners (e.g. funders, food co-op).
Focus groups were conducted with parents of children participating in school meal programs in the six study school districts.
Key Findings
Districts faced challenges implementing COVID-19 safe meal logistics, maintaining participation, and navigating changing pandemic-related policies including USDA school meal waivers and pandemic-EBT.
Barriers families faced in taking advantage of meals included transportation difficulties, COVID-19 safety concerns and a lack of fresh foods.
Districts implemented innovations to boost participation such as bus-stop meal delivery system, community pick-up locations, leveraging partner resources, and diverse outreach strategies.
Efforts to increase accessibility of meals were not enough to overcome factors such as perceptions of meal appeal, ultimately reducing school meal participation in many districts.
Policy Implications
FunderS
Stanford MedScholars Program, Stanford Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the American Heart Association Voices for Healthy Kids, and the Sierra Health Foundation.
