{"id":319798,"date":"2026-06-02T21:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/319798\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T21:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:57:10","slug":"students-at-33-houston-isd-campuses-will-not-automatically-receive-free-meals-during-2026-27-school-year-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/319798\/","title":{"rendered":"Students at 33 Houston ISD campuses will not automatically receive free meals during 2026-27 school year \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"HISD<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Adkison\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Students at Wainwright Elementary School in Houston ISD eat their meals provided by the school on Nov. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

During the next school year, thousands of Houston ISD students across 33 campuses will no longer automatically receive free breakfast and lunch, according to the district.<\/p>\n

The district announced the changes this week and said the campuses would no longer be participating in the Community Eligibility Provision Program (CEP) \u2014 a federal initiative created in 2010 to provide students with free meals on a schoolwide basis, rather than on an individual student basis. <\/p>\n

Families can still apply on a household level for their children to receive free or reduced-priced meals if their school is no longer participating in CEP. Details about the household eligibility requirements can be found on the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Square Meals website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

For schools to qualify for CEP, at least 25% of a campus’ student population must be participating in government assistance programs \u2014 such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) \u2014 or be categorized as a foster child, unhoused, a migrant, a runaway child or enrolled in Head Start, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Campuses where between 25% and 62.4% of students meet these requirements receive partial free-meal allocations based on their percentage of qualifying students. Campuses where at least 62.5% of students qualify receive a reimbursement for all meals. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

USDA website<\/p>\n

A CEP slider tool provided by the USDA.<\/p>\n

For example, if 25% of a campus’ population meets the requirements, then that campus will receive 40% of its meals at a “free rate,” according to the USDA<\/a>. Likewise, if 62.4% of a campus’ population is eligible, then that campus will receive 99.8% of its meals at a “free rate.”<\/p>\n

All students at CEP-participating schools receive their meals for free, and parents are not responsible for their children’s meals, according to the USDA. It is up to the participating schools and their districts to pay for any meals not covered by the free rate.<\/p>\n

Houston ISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding why these 33 campuses specifically would no longer be participating in CEP. According to the district’s website, the majority of its roughly 260 campuses are still participating in CEP<\/a> for the upcoming school year. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Houston ISD board votes to close 12 schools, angering audience at meeting<\/a><\/p>\n

According to data from the Texas Education Agency from the 2024-25 school year, 21 of the 33 campuses had a student population in which at least 25% were considered “economically disadvantaged,” meaning they qualify individually for free meals and likely qualify for some form of government assistance. Three of the 33 campuses had a student population in which more than 62.4% of students were considered “economically disadvantaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being considered economically disadvantaged does not automatically mean the student’s household has enrolled in any assistance programs, and recent changes at the federal level have made it more difficult for families to apply for and maintain such benefits, like SNAP.<\/p>\n

Houston ISD\u2019s announcement comes after Congress expanded work requirements for SNAP<\/a> beneficiaries as part of the Republican-backed \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act,\u201d which passed largely along party lines. This has led to a drop in SNAP participation, with 500,000 fewer Texans enrolling compared to last year<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Here are the Houston ISD campuses that will no longer offer free meals to every student:<\/p>\n

Baker Montessori
\nBriarmeadow Charter School
\nBush Elementary
\nCondit Elementary
\nHarvard Elementary
\nHelms Elementary
\nHorn Elementary
\nKolter Elementary
\nMandarin Immersion Magnet School
\nOak Forest Elementary
\nPoe Elementary
\nRiver Oaks Elementary
\nRoberts Elementary
\nSinclair Elementary
\nTravis Elementary
\nTwain Elementary
\nWest University Elementary
\nWharton Elementary
\nHogg Middle School
\nLanier Middle School
\nPin Oak Middle School
\nTH Rogers Middle School
\nBellaire High School
\nCarnegie Vanguard High School
\nChallenge High School
\nDeBakey High School for Health Professions
\nEnergy Institute High School
\nHeights High School
\nHouston Academy for International Studies
\nKinder HSPVA
\nLamar High School
\nWaltrip High School
\nWestside High School<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Adkison\/Houston Public Media Students at Wainwright Elementary School in Houston ISD eat their meals provided by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[114684,163,1182,114685,4045,56,58,1686,57,66,223,4253,4250],"class_list":["post-319798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-community-eligibility-provision-program","tag-education","tag-education-news","tag-free-school-lunches","tag-hisd","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-isd","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-news","tag-one-big-beautiful-bill","tag-snap-benefits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}