No Hungry Kids in Schools Act

Bill: 119-hr-2402
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Aguilar, Pete [D-CA-33]
Introduced: 2025-03-27
Policy area: Agriculture and Food
Latest action: action_date: 2025-03-27
text: Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Summaries:
action_date: 2025-03-27
action_desc: Introduced in House
text: <p><strong>No Hungry Kids in Schools Act</strong></p><p>This bill directs the Department of Agriculture&nbsp;(USDA) to establish an option for states to utilize a statewide Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) for USDA school meal programs. As background, the CEP allows eligible schools, groups of schools, and school districts the option to offer free breakfast and lunch to all enrolled students without collecting household applications.</p><p>Specifically, USDA must establish a statewide CEP option that may be used by a state agency. The state agency must provide state (nonfederal) funding to local educational agencies to reimburse applicable schools at the free reimbursement rate for 100% of the meals served.</p><p>Eligibility for the statewide CEP must be based on a statewide calculation of the percentage of identified enrolled students, regardless of a school's local educational agency. Further, the bill lowers the CEP participation threshold for a statewide CEP to an identified student percentage (ISP) of zero, from a minimum of 25% under current regulations.&nbsp;The ISP is the percentage of students who are eligible for free school meals without a household application, primarily those who are directly certified through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).</p><p>In addition, the bill specifies that the reimbursement multiplier for school meals remains at the current level of 1.6. The reimbursement multiplier is used to calculate how many meals will be reimbursed at the free meal rate.</p>

tv_txt: I 119th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 2402 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES March 27, 2025 Mr. Aguilar (for himself, Mr. Carson , Ms. Chu , Mr. DeSaulnier , Mr. McGarvey , Ms. Jacobs , Mr. Gottheimer , Mr. Mullin , Ms. Norton , Mr. Panetta , Ms. Pingree , Ms. Tlaib , and Mrs. Watson Coleman ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce A BILL To amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to establish statewide community eligibility for certain special assistance payments, and for other purposes.

1. Short title This Act may be cited as the No Hungry Kids in Schools Act . 2. Statewide community eligibility Section 11(a)(1)(F) of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act ( 42 U.S.C. 1759a(a)(1)(F) ) is amended by adding at the end the following: (xiv) Statewide community eligibility For each school year beginning on or after July 1, 2025, the Secretary shall establish an option for States to utilize a statewide community eligibility program, for purposes of which, in the case of a State agency that agrees to provide funding from sources other than Federal funds to ensure that local educational agencies in the State receive the free reimbursement rate for 100 percent of the meals served at applicable schools, as defined by the Secretary— (I) the multiplier described in clause (vii) shall apply; (II) the threshold described in clause (viii) shall be zero; and (III) the percentage of enrolled students who were identified students shall be calculated across all applicable schools in the State regardless of local educational agency. .