The Decline of School Meals

This story was written by Hailey Kan

Murray Hill Academy students do not enjoy their school meals .

“I feel like [the foods] lack nutritional value. Some of the food doesn’t, it doesn’t look edible. And I don’t think many kids would really be excited for lunch when it’s time to eat, because then the food really just ends up thrown away,” senior Jesus said.

And it’s not just in Murray Hill Academy. Hunger Solutions New York, a report by the Food Research & Action Center, “reveals a decline in participation relative to the previous school year; 12.4 percent fewer students ate school breakfast and 4.3 percent fewer ate school lunch. Nearly 793,000 children in New York participated in school breakfast and just over 1.5 million participated in school lunch on an average day during the 2022–2023 school year.”

“Most of the kids really just want to buy food outside and actually enjoy something so that they could be able to go through the day with a full stomach,” Jesus said.

According to Funding Our Schools by the Department of Education, only 12% of the $4.9 billion School Operations Budget goes to food, serving 880,000 meals daily with free breakfast and lunch available to all students.

While this may seem to be a lot, according to Chalkbeat New York, Mayor Eric Adams cut $60 million of the city’s school food budget in November 2023. This forced the Education Department to “thin out” the school cafeteria menu by removing “pricier items.” This included cheese burritos, chicken dumplings, cookies, and more. However, these options were favorites for students, and were eventually restored to the menu.

In the School Meals Report by the New York City Council, the total cost per breakfast is $3.95, while the total cost per lunch is $6.00. So the lack of funding, and food options has led to fewer students eating and more waste. According to Food Service Director, “As the nation’s largest school district, NYC Public Schools generate more than 80 million pounds of trash per year.”

Some people have their own solution for how lunch should be handled.

“I think the problem is twofold. One, the quality of food is bad, and it’s because of the lack of funding and the lack of incentive for people to get good tasting food. In order to fix that, they need to make school lunches paid and only give free vouchers to kids who can’t afford it. And then the people who can pay for it can opt out and instead pay for things like outside lunch. And I think that will improve the quality of food for people who want to eat school lunch whilst not wasting food, because only people who can afford the lunch or people who buy the lunch will get it, so it also reduces the waste,” senior Kiroto said. 

However, other people do not see a problem.

“I feel like you [students] may get better food just because I know over the years they would constantly change the menu. Kids right now might say the opposite, but if you were growing up when I was here, you would definitely say the food is better,” Justin Moore, former school dean of Murray Hill Academy, said. According to the school’s official website, he graduated from Murray Hill Academy in 2016.

When asked about his past experience with the school lunch quality in Murray Hill Academy, Justin said, “It wasn’t the worst because at the end of the day, if you’re hungry, you’re going to eat. So I wouldn’t say it’s the worst thing, but some days I wasn’t really a big school lunch eater. So yeah, I usually do my own things … but that’s what the kids do now. But if they’re hungry, they’ll eat.”

“I lived in Brooklyn for a while and then I moved to Manhattan. I’ve been here since. So the food is okay to me, so it hasn’t changed anything,” Jason Alicea, supervising school aide, said. He graduated from Norman Thomas High School, which preceded Murray Hill Academy, in 1993 and worked at that school in 2001 before it split into four smaller schools. He was a founding member of Murray Hill Academy according to the school’s website.

When asked about his perspective on how others feel about school lunch, he said, “Everybody has their own prerogative on how, you know, eating wise, some kids will want it, some kids don’t want it. So I guess it goes based on who wants it and who doesn’t want it.”

To encourage students to eat school meals, the mayor should increase the school lunch budgets to allocate more money into the quality and quantity of food options that students can have in order for there to be less food waste.