It is becoming increasingly difficult for school districts to provide healthy meals for students, hire and retain the workers to cook those meals, and meet strict nutritional guidelines set by the federal government, according to district leaders.
The trouble is, the problem is likely to get worse without an increase in federal reimbursement for school meal programs, they say.
A third of district leaders—31%—face significant challenges in meeting school meal requirements, and just under half face a moderate challenge, according to a June 2026 survey of 423 district leaders released last month by AASA, the School Superintendents Association. Forty percent of district leaders said they have reduced spending on instructional materials or tutoring programs, or dipped into rainy day funds, to pay for school meals.
“The current reimbursement rate is not sufficient and does not cover the true cost of producing meals,” said Tara Thomas, a policy analyst for AASA who worked on the survey report.
“The reimbursement should cover the cost of food, but also the cost of equipment, labor and supplies,” she added.
A combination of limited reimbursement and stringent nutrition standards leads to a reliance on “heat and serve” meals over scratch cooking. In addition, schools are often short-staffed or don’t own the equipment necessary to prepare fresh meals.
Processed foods that show their ingredients and nutritional value are “easier” when districts must show they’re meeting nutritional guidelines, Thomas said.
Student participation is key for meal programs to succeed
Districts need to pay special attention to how much students enjoy eating their meals, Thomas said. In trying to meet the strict nutritional standards on the use of sugar, sodium, or whole grains, school meals often aren’t palatable to students.
More than 1 in 3 superintendents said that student participation was their biggest operational challenge. When students don’t eat school meals, districts can’t ensure they get the nutrition they need and the school meal program struggles financially.
Thomas said districts and policymakers must make student participation a key measure of a meal program’s success and try to balance any change in nutritional standards with students’ health and taste preferences.
Districts want to move to ‘scratch cooking,’ but find it difficult
Almost all superintendents said their districts prepare some portion of their meals from scratch, using raw or minimally processed ingredients. But this proportion varies—1 in 4 rural respondents cook 26-50% of their meals from scratch; 19% of urban and suburban respondents said the same.
It isn’t just the lack of trained staff. Districts need to make significant investments in kitchen infrastructure, equipment, and cold and dry storage capacity. These changes would be bigger for districts that rely mostly on heat-and-serve meals, like packaged frozen food which can be prepared by just heating it up.
Forty-four percent of superintendents said they don’t currently have the necessary facilities to cook every school meal from scratch.
District leaders want financial support to make investments in quality food products, said Thomas, but they also need guidance on procurement, supply chains, and product availability.
Many districts reported challenges in this area, according to the report. Low-sodium, whole-grain products, for instance, can be expensive and hard to source, especially when “all the schools are trying to get the same products, at the same time,” said Thomas.
Districts need flexibility to meet federal nutritional standards with what they can afford to spend and source. This could look like splitting their budget between local producers, who may have fresher or tastier products, and national suppliers who sell products in bulk at lower prices.
Superintendents’ responses should help shape any future nutrition policies set by the federal government, Thomas said.
Olina Banerji is a reporter for Education Week who covers school leadership.