School meals: Child Nutrition Act of 2022.

Existing law requires each school district or county superintendent of schools maintaining kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, and each charter school to provide for each needy pupil one nutritionally adequate free or reduced-price meal during each schoolday, and authorizes a school district or county office of education to use funds available from any federal program the purpose of which includes the provision of meals to a pupil, including the federal School Breakfast Program, to comply with that requirement. Existing law, commencing with the 2022–23 school year, requires a school district or county superintendent of schools maintaining kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, or charter school to provide 2 nutritiously adequate school meals free of charge during each schoolday to any pupil who requests a meal without consideration of the pupil's eligibility for a federally funded free or reduced-priced meal, with a maximum of one free meal for each meal service period, as provided. This bill would require the State Department of Education, in consultation with the State Department of Social Services, to develop, and to post on its internet website by July 1, 2023, guidance for local educational agencies participating in the federal School Breakfast Program that maintain kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 6, inclusive, on how to serve eligible nonschoolaged children breakfast or a morning snack at a local educational agency schoolsite. The bill would define "eligible nonschoolaged child" to mean a child who is not enrolled in school and who is a sibling, half sibling, or stepsibling of, or a foster child residing with, a pupil who is eligible for a free or reduced-price breakfast. The bill would require a guardian of an eligible nonschoolaged child to be present in order for the nonschoolaged child to receive breakfast or a morning snack.