Mayor Bill de Blasio, working closely with the New York City Council, passed a budget on June 19, 2014 that included $6.25 million to provide free school lunch to middle school students during the 2014-15 school year. The specific policy took advantage of the federal Community Eligibility Provision, which states that states that any school (or group of schools) that has a certain proportion of high-needs students can use federal reimbursements to serve all students a free lunch.

Because of initial concerns around implementation, and to determine early impacts of universal free lunch on schools, researchers at the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education, & Policy in the Program in Nutrition, Teachers College, Columbia University distributed an online survey to all principals in standalone middle schools to determine any challenges or successes occurring in the first year.

Report:

Principals’ perceptions of universal free lunch: A survey analysis.

_{Funding for this study was from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.}