Stafford Schools to Seek Public Support for Student Lunch Debt

As of the December 8, 2025, Board of Education Budget Committee meeting, students had accrued $3,800 in school lunch debt, according to the subcommittee’s minutes. With a number in hand and the news made public, the district will be seeking community support to cover that debt. 

As you may recall, last year Stafford opted into the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which “allows the nation’s highest poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications.” However, that left the school district with a significant deficit in the school lunch program budget, forcing it to revert to a traditional paid model, with free and reduced-price lunch available to students who need it. 

Lunch prices increased, and students resumed paying for their lunches unless they qualified for free or reduced-price meals and their families submitted the appropriate paperwork. Some students’ families haven’t completed the paperwork, or are unable to pay for other reasons, yet the students still need to eat. And now roughly 150 students have incurred nearly $4,000 in debt. 

Stafford is far from alone. School & State Finance Project reports, "Student debt from unpaid meals is soaring after the vast majority of Connecticut schools returned to a paid lunch model at the start of the 2023 to 2024 school year." They found, "A midyear meal debt report, conducted by the School Nutrition Association of Connecticut, revealed a collective debt of $366,403 held by nearly 50 districts in the state that participated in the survey."And the problem continues.

Still, next year could be an entirely new ballgame for school lunch programs. “With food insecurity on the rise and changes to programs like SNAP, some Connecticut lawmakers are making a renewed push to pass legislation during the 2026 session that would guarantee universal meals for students across the state, regardless of their school district,” according to CT Mirror.