Serving Students: Increased Free and Reduced-Price School Meal Access in Missouri

Finance
Written By Evan Rhinesmith

Since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed in 2010, schools increasingly have used meal program and policy mechanisms, such as the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) and Breakfast after the Bell (BATB), to increase participation. In this brief, we utilize statewide school-level data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) from 2016-2020 to examine free and reduced-price school meal programs.

We find:

  • Student free and reduced-price breakfast participation has increased in Missouri for schools that participate in CEP (7-percentage point increase) and BATB (10-percentage point increase).

  • The greatest increases in Free and Reduced-Price Breakfast participation have occurred in schools that utilize both the Community Eligibility Provision and Breakfast after the Bell (14 percentage point increase).

  • Breakfast after the Bell can be attributed to a 1.5-percentage point increase in free and reduced-price breakfasts served following policy adoption, a total of 810,000 more breakfasts served per year.

 

 
 
 
 
Evan Rhinesmith
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