California’s School Meals for All Program: Evaluation reveals a host of benefits

With the 2022–23 school year, California was the first in the nation to adopt and fund a program to offer meals free of charge to every student in the state. Under School Meals for All (SMFA), sometimes referred to as universal school meals, all California public school students in grades TK-12 are offered breakfast and lunch every school day.

The state commissioned the Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI), in the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources, to evaluate the program, see how implementation has worked, how it can be improved, and what impact it is making for students, families and schools.

Perhaps the most important thing to point out from the evaluation is how popular the program is among students and families. The majority of families want the program to continue because it not only provides healthy meals to students, but also saves families time and stress and helps to stretch their food budgets.

Evaluation findings

Since 2021, NPI used surveys, interviews and focus groups with over 1,000 school food service directors, 3,000 parents, 1,000 students and other school staff, and found that the program is working well. Not only is it finding success in its most immediate aim to feed more children, but the evaluation also shows how its benefits extend to classrooms, families and school operations.

The program is very popular. Across all income levels, eight in 10 parents and almost nine in 10 students support California’s SMFA. Parents appreciate the way that SMFA saves them time and money and reduces their stress. Many students cite the decrease in stigma and their appreciation of how the program builds equity among students. Eighty percent of school food service directors support the program and believe participation will decline if the state were to return to the tiered financial eligibility system.

More students are participating. Two-thirds of California food service directors report increased participation. The Center for Ecoliteracy estimates that meal participation has gone up nearly 8 percent since the program began, while the California Department of Education estimates that nearly 1 billion school meals will be served in 2025–26, up from 816 million in 2018–19 (pre-pandemic), even while this was a period of declining enrollment.

When more students participate in school meals, fewer go hungry. But all students who eat school meals benefit from the improved nutrition standards required by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. In fact, research shows that school meals provide the overall healthiest source of food in the U.S. for children ages 5-19. This makes school meals a critical strategy to reduce diet-related chronic disease, which is at an epidemic level in the U.S.

Stigma and embarrassment about eating school meals has decreased. Stigma, a feeling of shame, previously discouraged some eligible low-income students and families from receiving school meals. With SMFA, two-thirds of California students and parents report reduced feelings of stigma or embarrassment. One middle school student told NPI, “Before it would be kind of embarrassing, because it was like ‘Oh, you’re poor, you don’t have any money.’ But now that it’s free to everybody, then nobody can tell.” In addition, SMFA eliminates the need for meal accounts and the shaming that could come when a student’s account was out of money.

The program reduces hunger. Students in states with SMFA have significantly less hunger. This is particularly important for the 44 percent of California families who do not have enough to eat, but would not qualify for free or reduced-price meals because they make just above the poverty level. This federally set level does not take into account California’s high cost of living. Notably, participation has grown the most among students who qualify for free meals as well as among those whose families struggle to meet basic needs yet earn too much to qualify.

School meals are getting better and fresher. School meals sometimes have a bad reputation, but meals throughout California are improving. Two-thirds of school food service directors report they have improved the quality of the meals and have changed menus to appeal to students. More than half report they are doing more “scratch cooking.” And 82 percent of districts freshly prepare at least some meal offerings.

California’s additional supports, including an unprecedented additional per-meal reimbursement on top of the federal reimbursement, two rounds of Kitchen Equipment and Training (KIT) grants, and supports for Farm to School and local purchasing, have all contributed to improving meal quality. Our analysis shows that districts that had received and spent KIT funds are sourcing more locally grown produce, cooking more freshly prepared meals onsite, beginning to improve foodservice staff salaries and benefits, improving cafeterias and shortening lunch lines.

The learning environment is better. Teachers in NPI’s study report that SFMA helps to improve academics (84 percent of teachers surveyed), attentiveness (80 percent) and behavior (69 percent), and that the program has a positive impact on students’ feelings of inclusiveness and social-emotional well-being. These findings are supported by other studies showing myriad benefits ranging from improved school attendance to reduced bullying in the cafeteria.

School finances are better. California food service directors report increased revenues due to the increase in participation and elimination of meal debt; some school districts report they have been able to improve staff salaries and benefits. When schools incur meal debt it must be paid by a school district’s general funds, which can force cuts to core educational services.

There is still room for improvement. The study also found ongoing challenges with SMFA, including foodservice staffing shortages, limited infrastructure, inadequate funding and paperwork burden for food service departments. As one food service director explained, “There’s been lots of equipment grants and we’ve been able to upgrade a lot of our equipment, and we’ve had infrastructure grants as well. But to really make a huge impact, I think we need more capacity within the facility. And a lot of buildings in our district are very old, so space in the kitchen is a huge one.”

NPI’s evaluation also identified some ongoing barriers to students’ participation, such as their desire for more freshly prepared school meals and more variety, and for adequate time to eat.

Elsewhere in the U.S., eight other states have implemented universal school meals since California’s adoption, with many more states attempting to make the change. Tellingly, in three states that returned to the tiered financial eligibility system after the pandemic universal meals program ended — Arizona, Colorado and Texas — a survey of school nutrition personnel by NPI revealed negative impacts on meal participation, stigma, finances and operations.

To learn more about Nutrition Policy Institute’s School Meals for All evaluation study please visit our webpage, at bit.ly/ca-smfa.