When schools closed their doors in March, many children lost access to that critical source of nutrition. Then the Agriculture Department, using powers granted by Congress in the
noreferrer" target="_blank">Families First Coronavirus Response Act, issued waivers giving schools and community organizations significant flexibility in how they could distribute meals.
With a substantial number of schools, including almost all major urban districts, returning to school this fall with remote instruction only, members of Congress from both parties had urged the Agriculture Department to extend the special rules through the end of the school year. Of particular interest was allowing schools and community organizations to continue operating their summer nutrition programs, which fed all children under 19 without charge.
But Sonny Perdue, the secretary of agriculture, had asserted that his department had neither the money nor the authority to do that. Democrats disputed that, asserting that providing meals under the special rules had not cost any more than the standard school breakfast and lunch program, and that, in any case, Congress had given the department additional funding.
Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, accused Mr. Perdue of using the issue to pressure schools to reopen physically, as President Trump has pushed them to do.
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- Cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus have increased at a faster rate in children and teenagers than among the general public, data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics from the summer show.
- Universities that are trying to reopen with in-person classes are pioneering Covid tests and tracking apps that could help society combat the pandemic.
- Privately owned bus companies, which carry nearly 10 million children to school a year, are facing an unparalleled threat to their survival.
- Resident advisers in college dorms have been drafted to enforce mask wearing and social distancing rules, and to report on fellow students who violate those rules.
Part of what was at stake for school districts was financial. Many school food programs, which rely on economies of scale to stay solvent, had already seen major declines in participation after schools closed in the spring; further drops could have threatened their very existence.
Speaking at an elementary school in Georgia on Monday morning, Mr. Perdue repeated his argument that his department did not have the authority or the funding to extend the special rules through the end of the school year, and said he did not think it was appropriate to provide free meals to all students on a permanent basis.