In April of this year, the SPAC delegation both selected school food as our sponsored legislation focus area and understanding that school food standards and reimbursement are highly dependent on the Federal Child Nutrition Act and School Lunch Program, the delegation also voted to support three Federal “marker” bills in connection with the Child Nutrition Act (CNA) reauthorization, which is a review and update of Act which occurs every 5 years.  SPAC focused on the House of Representative’s version of the CNA reauthorization, as the Senate’s version (S. 3307) was finalized in March prior to our review.  The three “marker” bills that we supported included:

HR 4148: Hunger Free Schools Act, which among other things would allow more schools in high poverty areas to provide free meals to all children and allows use of Medicaid data to certify children for free meals (“direct certify”).

HR 4333: Children’s Fruit and Vegetable Act, which would provide children with increased access to fruit and salad bars.

HR 4870: Healthy School Meals Act, which would provide schools with more vegetarian foods and healthful nondairy beverages.

When the House finalized their reauthorization bill (HR 5504), it included many of the provisions of the Hunger Free Schools Act and the Children’s Fruit and Vegetable Act.  Though both bills improve upon the current Act, neither include adequate funding to fundamentally transform school food, however they do include many health-promoting policy provisions and small increases in reimbursement to schools.  The House’s version includes more provisions for access to healthy school meals than it’s counterpart, additionally the Senate’s version would pay for improvements through cuts to food stamp programs which are also critical to the communities we serve.  

For a side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate CNA reauthorization bills, please click on the following link:  http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/cnr_side_by_side_comparison_aug2010.pdf

Click here for more information about the CNA reauthorization: http://www.schoolnutrition.org/content.aspx?id=2402 

Unfortunately, Congress didn’t get to the CNA reauthorization before it recessed in late September. We will monitor the vote timing with the hope that the SPAC delegation has an opportunity to contact Congress in favor of the House bill.  

Joy Burkhard, SPAC Co-Chair

Nov. 2010