H.R. 6795 — School MEALS Act of 2025

This section establishes grants and technical assistance under the National School Lunch Act to improve direct certification rates (i.e., the percentage of children eligible for direct certification—based on household receipt of SNAP benefits under paragraph (4) or Medicaid/foster care/SSI/homelessness under paragraph (5)—who are automatically certified for free school meals without an application). Eligible entities include state agencies and tribal organizations (as defined in 25 U.S.C. 5304); grants prioritize those with the lowest rates and fund technology improvements, technical assistance to local educational agencies, direct certification system implementation or revision (including equipment), and coordination with public benefits programs (e.g., feasibility studies and demonstrations). Separate grants support states and tribal organizations administering the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations to establish or improve direct certification for children in participating households, using the same allowable costs; the Secretary must also provide technical assistance to grant recipients and other eligible entities. Provides $28 million in mandatory funding, transferred from the Treasury on October 1, 2025 and available until expended, with not less than $2 million for Food Distribution Program grants and not more than $3 million for technical assistance.

This section revises eligibility determination and continuation rules for the community eligibility provision (CEP) under the National School Lunch Program, which enables high-poverty schools or school districts (i.e., those with identified student percentages of at least 40%) to serve free breakfasts and lunches to all students without individual applications, by (1) extending the counting period for identified students in clause (iv)(I)(bb) to from April 1 through the last day of the school year (from as of April 1), applying the same extended period to the covered school year (newly defined as the school year prior to a school's or local educational agency's first year electing CEP payments), and (2) in clause (x), eliminating the June 30 current-year deadline for electing continuation payments in subclause (I), and clarifying in subclauses (II)(aa) and (IV)(aa) that counts under clause (viii) are based on schools' counts of identified students beginning on or after April 1 of that school year.

This section adds to the annual state report on performance in directly certifying children receiving program benefits (e.g., SNAP or TANF) for free school meals (42 U.S.C. 1758a(b)) a new requirement for states identified for failing to meet direct certification benchmarks (42 U.S.C. 1758(b)(4)(F)(ii)(I)) to describe (1) the technical assistance provided to the state and (2) the state's progress in implementing required improvement measures and meeting related goals.