The COVID-19 pandemic forced students to pack up their bags and switch from whiteboards to laptops. Empty schools meant empty cafeterias. Until the pandemic, Jana Goodman, a mother of three and longtime resident of Waukesha, Wisconsin, never used free school lunches. Even though she said her family was always “one broken down car away from a disaster,” her only school-age child at the time, Jacob, did not qualify for free and reduced meals. Then the pandemic sent the Goodmans’ finances into a tailspin. After 15 years in the medical field as an administrative employee, she was furloughed for most of the summer in 2020. Her husband, who works three jobs, saw income from his most profitable gig as a DJ plummet as people stayed home. To hold onto their house and to build a strong financial base for their children’s future, the Goodmans used any assistance they could to stay afloat. Do you have feedback on Milwaukee NNS's reporting? Take our survey to let us know how we're doing! “The free meals was a huge one, because it may not seem like it day to day, but lunch money adds up,” Goodman said, adding that the family continued picking up the meals through the summer of 2021. Roughly 1 in 5 children face food insecurity in Wisconsin. For other families like the Goodmans already struggling to pay their bills before the pandemic, the situation quickly became dire. Schools quickly pivoted to fill the gap thanks to federal waivers that allowed districts to run more flexible food service programs. One key waiver permitted schools to opt into federal programs normally restricted by income-based eligibility, allowing them to serve free meals to all students. The Seamless Summer Option, along with similar federal programs, gave schools, even those meeting virtually, the ability to provide free meals for all students during the pandemic. What started out as an emergency relief provision has since turned into a nationwide experiment — one testing the benefits and costs of offering universal free meals to an unprecedented number of U.S. students, regardless of family income. In recent months, universal free meals have garnered approval from schools, anti-hunger advocates and legislators across Wisconsin who argue that breakfast and lunch — like textbooks — should be available at no cost to any K-12 student. But the federal waiver that permitted universal free school meals expired June 30, and legislation to extend or permanently implement a free meals program has stalled at the state and federal level, leaving an uncertain future for free school meals in Wisconsin. And some elected officials here strongly object to the idea. The School District of Waukesha, where Goodman’s son attends school, became the epicenter of that debate nationally, when for a brief time it was the only district in Wisconsin to reject free meals for all. In 2019, 39% of children qualified for free or reduced lunch across the 424 Wisconsin school districts participating in U.S. Department of Agriculture’s child nutrition programs, according to the state Department of Public Instruction. The abrupt halt to school lunches during the pandemic was a blow to many of these families who relied on those meals. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Judi Bartfeld said the number of food insecure children across the country grew during the first year of the pandemic — and in Wisconsin, that number was already higher than the national average. Bartfeld called school meals “clearly an area where more can be done.” For the 2021-22 school year, every school in the state — except briefly, Waukesha — chose to offer universal free meals through the Seamless Summer Option, said Karrie Isaacson, the school nutrition assistant director for the state Department of Public Instruction. The only exceptions were low-income districts, schools and other child care institutions already providing free meals through other federal programs such as the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). That includes Milwaukee Public Schools and most private and charter schools in Wisconsin’s biggest city, and several Madison public schools. Bartfeld said universal free meals help struggling families because they do not have to qualify or fill out paperwork. The result is more children eating at school, kids being less likely to skip breakfast and some improvement in school attendance, she said. Following the expansion of free meals during the pandemic, DPI nutrition consultant Kirsten Homstad said schools cited a decrease in administrative burdens since they did not have to keep track of students’ free or reduced status.