Title: School Meals FAQs | USDA-FNS
Headings: School Meals FAQs
School Meals FAQs
Requirements for Meal Content and Quality
Accommodations for Children with Special Dietary Needs
Free and Reduced Price Meals
Denial of Meals
Also See

Content: School meals are required to meet specific nutrition standards to operate the school meals programs. The standards align school meals with the latest nutrition science and the real world circumstances of America’s schools. ( For more information on the standards available to school menu planners, visit the Healthy Meals Resource System .) Do children have to select everything that is offered? By law, children in high school must be permitted to decline lunch items they do not intend to eat. The program regulations allow schools to elect to extend this permission to elementary and junior high school children as well. This means that high school children may decline as many as two of the five items in a food-based lunch, and younger children may decline one or two items depending on local policy. For breakfast, a child may decline one item regardless of which menu planning option is used. What can be done to improve the meals served in schools? We recognize that school meals must look and taste good if children are going to eat them.