Online schools and students face many challenges. Schools usually receive lower per-student funding than their physical counterparts. Students often have to travel to take state assessments, sometimes far from home. Students in some states still don’t have access to an online or hybrid school. And more.
But as national headlines are full of stories about families at risk of losing food assistance, it’s worth noting—without in any way diminishing the seriousness of the SNAP issue—that hundreds of thousands of full-time online public school students who otherwise qualify for school meals benefits do not receive them. This isn’t a result of the current government shutdown or recent policy battles, but instead is due to an antiquated National School Lunch Program policy that requires school meals to be served only in a congregate setting.
DLAC will soon release a white paper on the importance of modernizing the National School Lunch Program to serve online school students. This post reviews some of the key findings.
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), and related initiatives form the heart of America’s child nutrition safety net, feeding nearly 30 million students daily in 94,000 schools, and reducing hunger, improving health, and strengthening educational outcomes. But roughly half a million students who are eligible for those programs are denied access for the sole reason that they attend virtual public schools.
Our national school nutrition policy has its roots in Depression-era relief efforts and surplus commodity programs as codified in the National School Lunch Act of 1946. Early initiatives demonstrated the link between nutrition, health, and academic performance, leading to permanent federal investment in meal programs for low-income children. Over time, successive policy changes have aimed to improve access, participation, accountability, and quality.
Decades of research confirms that participation in school meal programs improves nutrition, health, and academic outcomes. Nutrition research underscores that the school-age years (5–15) are a final window of opportunity to correct early deficiencies and support long-term health and productivity. Studies show that school meal participation is linked to better attendance, behavior, and test scores, especially among low-income students. It is also clear that requiring healthier meals does not reduce participation, and universal meal policies increase participation, improve diet quality, and reduce social stigma and discipline disparities.
Despite these advances, the requirement that meals be served in congregate settings has excluded or restricted student access in virtual, hybrid, and shortened school-week models. Excluding online public school students from school nutrition programs imposes hardship on their families, with many reporting dramatic increases in grocery expenses. Some report falling behind in paying other bills, and some virtual students have been forced to return to brick-and-mortar schools just because they needed the school breakfasts and lunches to avoid hunger.
Because virtual school students get no meals, their parents have little incentive to complete the eligibility paperwork, and so their eligibility is systemically undercounted. Only 32% of virtual students were reported as eligible in 2023-2024 federal statistics although more than half were certainly eligible. Conservative estimates suggest this undercounting in turn costs virtual schools tens of millions of dollars in Federal Title I and state poverty funding. Undercounting also negatively skews school performance ratings in state accountability systems.
Pandemic-era waivers and current summer benefit programs demonstrate that flexible, non-congregate service models work. Grab-and-go and Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) programs reached over 30 million children nationwide in 2020 and 2021, demonstrating scalable alternatives to in-person feeding. Research found these programs improved food security and nutrition while maintaining cost efficiency. The Senate Appropriations Committee in 2025 acknowledged these lessons, urging the USDA to expand access to non-congregate meal options for all income-eligible students.
The study will call for several policy changes, including:
- Modernize NSLP and SBP eligibility to allow non-congregate meals, parent pick-up, location flexibility, and multi-day meal pick-up and delivery.
- Support state innovation with USDA technical assistance for implementing meal programs across learning models.
- Expand permanent EBT options to supplement school-based service.
- Commission a GAO study on funding and accountability distortions from undercounting.
- Clarify data-reporting guidance to ensure accurate eligibility reporting for virtual programs.
- Encourage long-term alternatives to free and reduced-price meals as a poverty proxy in funding and accountability systems.
Stay tuned for more information about the white paper’s release.
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