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Food Day starts early for the poorest students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Breakfast will be available before class starts. All breakfast is then brought to the classroom, followed by snacks, lunch, snacks for after-school programs, and sometimes dinners sent home for the kids.
It’s all free.
Stephanie Levinson, a third-grade teacher at San Fernando Elementary School, said: “It’s a great help with breakfast – especially the food costs.” She estimated that about a quarter of her students rely on free school lunches.
Over 80% of LA Unified Students are eligible for free or low-cost school lunches. It provides $363 million annual funding, primarily in federal food aid received by the district.
However, this food aid appears to have become another Zotz chess production during the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure state and local officials to follow California and its orders.
In an inaccurate warning letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Trump-appointed chief of the US Department of Agriculture conditioned California to aid to follow Trump’s directions.
State education officials said the threat “fly in the face of a moral obligation to care for our country’s children.”
Federal officials argue that California law violates federal laws that guarantee access to parents’ children’s school records. State officials responded that California law does not violate federal law.
The Agriculture Department funds research and venerable 4-H Youth Development Program, but its central school-related contribution is paying for food to feed children from low-income families while in school. The annual total of USDA school-related food aid in California is over $3 billion a year.
The USDA “is under the direction of President Donald J. Trump to review research and other education-related funds in California for constitutional, federal law and the priorities of the Trump administration,” Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins wrote in a March 27 letter.
The USDA did not respond to multiple Times queries requesting details of the financing threats for letters to Newsom.
With unrelated actions, the department eliminated food supplement programs worth $1 billion a year. The program funded the purchase of high quality, fresh products from local producers.
The USDA said the program is a legacy of the pandemic and no longer supports the agency’s priorities.
State officials have hinted at the pending cuts in response to Rollins’ warning letter.
“Secretary Rollins is riding a shotgun at the Department of Education’s Department of Research, and everyone is trying not to distract her from her disgraceful billion dollars with recent cuts from school lunches, food banks and farmers.” “USDA’s actions have reduced the quality of food in our schools and deprived them of food from the Golden State and hungry families in our country.”
At Thursday’s press conference, Newsom didn’t specifically address the issues raised in the Rollins letter, calling it a “press release” rather than “Common Ground.” He also hinted at “hundreds and hundreds” realistic and potential threats to the nation from the federal government. “We take everything seriously.”
In its response, the California Department of Education mentioned Elon Musk, heading towards Trump-sanctioned budgets and successful groups, the government’s informal efficiency.
“Secretary Rollins and the Trump Musk administration have already scramble schools and family farms after cutting back on local food for schools,” said Liz Sanders, director of communications at the state Department of Education. “Now they bring partisan politics directly to the cafeteria table, threatening children’s food security as a mechanism to force the nation to comply with the national ideological agenda. This is wrong.”
The USDA “is under the direction of President Donald J. Trump to review research and other education-related funds in California for constitutional, federal law and the priorities of the Trump administration,” Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins wrote in a March 27 letter. Above, Los Angeles students will taste a test cafeteria meal in 2022.
(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
How California Nourishes Students
The fate of school district food aid, starting in the 2022-23 school year, is complicated by California law that guarantees free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of family income. Newsom signed the law, realizing that the federal government will pay most of the fees.
Current estimates are that the state will pay around $1.8 billion and the Fed this year, about $2.7 billion for breakfast and lunch, and other federal funds will pay additional food aid.
For leaders of local school districts such as LA Schools Supt, the outlook is troubling. Alberto Carvalho. He said the pending exclusion of the farm-to-table program is bad enough and there is one concern among many.
“We have made great strides in the past few years alone in ensuring healthier food options, from farms to tables, more fruits and vegetables,” Carvalho said. “The deviation from that will undermine the quality of the food we currently serve through that kind of funding suspension, and will also have a detrimental effect on local farmers who rely on business with the school district.”
Critics say the Trump administration is intentionally embracing confusion as part of a pressure campaign to influence actions taken by school districts, universities and states. They also accuse Trump of using children – in this case food for poor children pawns for political leverage.
Trump officials and supporters reversed their analysis, saying families and students are harming the radical left agenda.
The USDA endorses this, Rollins wrote in her letter: “We will strongly protect parental rights and ensure that students do not fall victim to fundamental transgender ideology that leads to family alienation and irreversible medical interventions.”
Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
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