Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency waivers made all students eligible for free meals. Those expired last year, and schools returned to offering free and reduced meals based on a family’s income. That's what's driving more than 800 school nutrition experts from across the country, including Arizona, to Washington, D.C., next month.

Diane Pratt-Heavner is with the School Nutrition Association.

"Unfortunately, the meal application form only takes into account income and not expenses," she said. "So there are a lot of families out there who don't qualify for meal benefits but are struggling to feed their families."

In addition to more families needing help, Pratt-Heavner said schools are facing higher costs to run meal programs.

“Congress recognized that schools would need additional funding to support their meal programs this year," she said, "and provided an extra 40 cents for lunch and 15 cents for breakfast, but those funds expire in July.”

She said schools are worried about how they’ll cover costs in the next academic year, so they're asking Congress to make that extra funding permanent. 

“We’re urging Congress to provide school meal programs [with] more funds, the ability to offer all their students free meals, and to maintain current nutrition standards, which ensure students are getting healthy meals," Pratt-Heavner said.