In late February, school nutrition professionals, industry representatives and advocates from across the country met in Washington DC for School Nutrition Association’s annual Legislative Action Conference. On February 25, 2019, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue spoke to conference attendees to share his experiences with school meals programs. During his talk, Secretary Perdue shared about USDA’s continuing efforts to provide flexibility to help school nutrition operators better serve students, outlining several recent changes at USDA.
Specifically, Secretary Perdue emphasized efforts since he took office in 2017 to restore local control on (school nutrition) guidelines for whole grains, sodium & milk. During his speech, he announced that the final rule achieving that goal was published in December or 2018. The final rule is outlined as follows:
- It will broaden the milk options in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program by allowing local operators to permanently offer flavored, low-fat milk. For consistency across nutrition programs, it will also allow flavored, low-fat milk in the Special Milk Program for Children and in the Child and Adult Care Food Program for participants ages 6 and older.
- This final rule will require that half of the weekly grains in the school lunch and breakfast menu be whole grain-rich, thus ending the need for the exemption process.
- It will provide schools in the lunch and breakfast programs more time for gradual sodium reduction by retaining Sodium Target 1 through the end of school year (SY) 2023-2024, continuing to Target 2 in SY 2024-2025, and eliminating the Final Target that would have gone into effect in SY 2022-2023.
He also announced USDA’s final rule on hiring flexibility for school nutrition programs and State Agency staff. The USDA’s intent with this policy change would be to make hiring of qualified school nutrition professionals easier for smaller districts (less than 2499 students). You can read more about this new final rule, which is effective beginning April 30, 2019 by following above link.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jeanne Reilly, NDTR
SNS DPG Policy & Advocacy Leader