School districts are reimagining what meal service will look like in the future, while trying to meet the needs of students and families during this immediate crisis. We do not know yet what specific plans are being designed for Norwalk Public Schools and other schools where Carver operates, but this we know for sure: the school cafeteria will be unrecognizable when the next academic year begins in the fall.
Whether or not in-person instruction resumes, students may be receiving breakfast and lunch in their classrooms, or they may be receiving more of the take-home meals that are now being delivered throughout the Norwalk school district, including via the Carver Community Center.
Nationally, more than 80 percent of schools offer food via drive-through pick up, and over half offer walk-up services, according to a recent School Nutrition Association survey.
This month, the Department of Agriculture extended a crucial waiver that allows all school districts, not just those in poor neighborhoods, to provide free meal service this summer. For example, the free food service now provided at the Carver Community Center from 12-2 PM each day will be extended until at last August 30th.
The agency in May extended waivers that allow school districts to operate grab-and-go models and permit parents to pick up food on their children’s behalf. No documentation is required at Carver. The food is available for non-NPS students as well.
School nutrition directors are saying they will need future extensions; they won’t be able to resume regular operations for months — possibly even years. The USDA will likely need to extend the waivers until we have a cure, or until we have vaccines. Directors at the nation’s largest school districts are saying that we won’t be back to normal (or as close to normal as we possibly can be) for two to even 10 years. Schools may have to do away with the lunch period itself. Students may be picking up their meals from the cafeteria on a classroom-by-classroom basis, then eating during their lessons.
Nutrition staffers may cook and deliver meals to classrooms ahead of time, which can make eating breakfast at school a more inclusive and less stigmatizing prospect for students who rely on it. But as a lunch model, it can pose unique hurdles, particularly at larger schools that are considering a cafeteria-to-classroom delivery model.
Complicating matters are the financial challenges: The pandemic imposed unexpected budgetary pressures on lunch programs, which have generally struggled to stay in the black. Most school lunch programs operate at cost or at a slight deficit; their revenues cover 97 percent of expenses on average, according to a USDA report on the school lunch program published last year. Over 67% of school districts are projecting deficits this year, and just one-third say that they can cover financial losses with money from general funds, according to SNA’s survey.
What school meal service will look like also depends a lot on ever-evolving local and federal Covid-19 guidelines. Only one thing is certain right now: School meals will become increasingly integral to child nutrition as families grapple with pandemic-related unemployment and financial hardship. Carver families are going to be relying on school meals more than ever.