Seattle Provides Free Daily Meals to Every Public School Student
Joy Ale
September 9, 2026
Photo Credit: CDC
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, SPS Superintendent Ben Shuldiner, Director of Culinary Services Aaron Smith, and Assistant Superintendent of School Operations Marni Campbell convened to discuss the city’s investment in free meals, student nutrition, and the development of the menu for all public schools.
Under the program, every student in the district can receive one free breakfast and one free lunch on each school day. The City Council agreed in July to fund it with one-time money for the 2026-27 school year, with the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise levy picking up the cost in 2027-28.
The program reached that point after a contested summer. A council committee first voted to delay universal meals by a year and fund weekend food for low-income students only, then reversed course within weeks amid public backlash.
The same agreement doubled spending on food support for students facing food insecurity on weekends and during school breaks.
Campbell also discussed the Child Nutrition Eligibility and Education Benefit application and explained why it is important for families to complete it. Although no family now needs to pay for meals, the district still needs eligibility data from every household, which is why it is asking all families to complete the form, preferably online.
Roughly half of the district’s 106 schools already offered universal meals before this year because so many of their students qualified under federal standards, and the program now extends that to the rest.
The city has committed to reimbursing the district for meals that federal funding does not cover, and participation is tracked through bar codes issued to students. Wilson has said she hopes the city money will only be needed to bridge a gap of a few years until the state funds universal school meals.
Going forward, student feedback will be used to develop new recipes. Students took part in a food demonstration and a taste test of new recipes immediately after the news conference, and Shuldiner used the event to comment on the tentative contract agreement that Seattle Education Association members were preparing to vote on.
