The New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) has a mission to provide free breakfast, lunch, and afterschool meals to all public school students fairly. Due to budgeting concerns at the beginning of the year, the DOE was forced to cut $60 million, leading to the removal of several favorites and nutritional items. Although the budget cut was reversed due to public backlash in March, the quality of lunches has not improved. Even though the menu is roughly the same for every public school in New York, individual budget differences can cause the quality of food between schools to sharply diminish. Food quality reflects student health, morale, and overall well-being.

The goal of this project is to determine the food satisfaction levels of students who attended New York City public schools. Keeping budget differences in mind, we would then also determine if and how food quality affects academic performance. After that, our priority would be to develop strategies that encourage consistency of food quality regardless of budget constraints.