California's Free School Meals for All (FSMFA) policy is a landmark investment in free school meals for all students that may reduce stigma and improve students' food security, diet, health, school attendance and academic performance. It will be implemented beginning in school year 2022-23. The University of California Nutrition Policy Institute received funding from the California state legislative office to assess the FSMA program and policy implementation through a formative evaluation to inform initial implementation, process evaluation to identify challenges and facilitators to optimize ongoing implementation, and outcome evaluation to quantify impacts on schools, students, families and communities over time. The four-year study began in October 2021 with NPI's Wendi Gosliner as principal investigator in collaboration with research team members Lorrene Ritchie, Christina Hecht and Ken Hecht. The NPI Research team is collaborating with multiple partners, including the California Department of Education, a variety of non-profit and community-based organizations that engage parents and students, as well as a team of national researchers studying the implementation of free school meals for all students in Maine.

School meals are the healthiest lunch option for most students, and national efforts are underway to support improved school meal participation and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables offered in school meals. Given the limited financial resources and large organizational structures in which school nutritional professionals are tasked to implement these nutrition interventions, it is critical to ensure appropriate support of school nutrition leaders. Researchers at the University of California and California State University, Chico published a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior describing four key school nutrition leadership characteristics for successful implementation of nutrition interventions. Characteristics included the leaders' understanding of the technical and operational details of the intervention, ability to proactively develop and communicate intervention plans, ability to provide supervisory oversight over implementation staff and contractors, and understanding that how they message the intervention to staff can influence staff acceptance and support of the intervention. These findings were captured in 14 in-depth interviews with school district leaders and staff from a large, urban California school district that was implementing a three-year project aimed to increase school lunch participation and reduce plate waste by middle- and high-school students. Study authors include Stephanie Machado from CSU Chico, Lorrene Ritchie from the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute, and Amanda Brewster, Valerie Shapiro, Kiran Magee, and Kristine Madsen from UC Berkeley. This study was supported by the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Meals provided to children at schools–funded by the USDA–help mitigate childhood food insecurity. Despite COVID-19 related school closures beginning March 2020, school districts across California continued to offer meals to children and families. In a recent community-based participatory research study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition, researchers at Stanford and the University of California (UC) Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) describe challenges and best practices in providing and accessing school meals during COVID-19. Researchers interviewed food service directors, school superintendents, and community partners, and conducted parent focus groups in English and Spanish, in six school districts in California's San Joaquin Valley–a region of predominantly low-income, Latino immigrant families. For schools, the leading barriers were developing safe meal distribution systems, boosting low participation, covering COVID-19 related costs and staying informed on policy changes. Families named transportation difficulties, safety concerns and lack of fresh food as major barriers to taking school foods. Researchers also identified pandemic-electronic benefit transfer (P-EBT), bus-stop meal deliveries, community meal pick-up locations, batched meal service and leveraging partner resources as innovative strategies for continuity in offering meals despite school closures. The study was conducted in partnership with two non-profit community organizations–Cultiva La Salud and Dolores Huerta Foundation–that work towards health equity and social justice in the San Joaquin Valley. The paper's authors were Ashley Jowell, Janine Bruce, Gabriela Escobar, Valeria Ordonez and Anisha Patel of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Christina Hecht of NPI. The study was funded by the Stanford Center of Excellence in Diversity in Medical Education and Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, Stanford Medical Scholars Research Program, the American Heart Association Voices for Healthy Kids, and the San Joaquin Valley Health Fund.

Throughout the pandemic, the Nutrition Policy Institute policy team, Christina Hecht and Ken Hecht, have partnered with a Stanford University research team and two San Joaquin Valley community-based organizations to help improve access to school meals. The team's study included parent focus groups to capture parents' concerns and wishes regarding their children's school meals, and a parent PhotoVoice project to visually document school meals. Nearly all parent engagements were conducted in Spanish and study findings were reported to the community via a bilingual webinar and Radio Bilingüe. Recently introduced state (California SB 364) and federal (The Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021) legislation aim to provide free school meals for all enrolled children. Both bills include added funds for locally-sourced foods and the establishment of a “Summer EBT” program to provide low-income families with extra funds for food when schools – and school meal programs – are closed. Learn about the legislation and read parent viewpoints in Parent Voices: School Meals for All, Parent Voices: Local Foods for School Meals, and Parent Voices: Summer EBT. This work was supported with funding from the American Heart Association Voices for Healthy Kids, The Center at Sierra Health Foundation and the San Joaquin Valley Health Fund, Stanford Medical Scholars Program, Stanford Pediatric Resident Research Grant, and Share Our Strength No Kid Hungry. This work also received a United States Public Health Service 2021 Excellence in Public Health Award.