2021 Kroger School Food Rankings

Across Texas, over 3 million students from low-income households qualify for free or reduced-price school meals through federal programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.  For many of these children, meals eaten at school are the only substantial meals they receive during the day. The ongoing global pandemic further illuminates the critical role school nutrition programs play in the lives of our students, and communities. 

The 2021 Kroger School Food Rankings evaluate how districts across Texas provide meals to low-income area school children by focusing on meal participation rates and after-school meal programs offered in each district. This year School Nutrition Departments went the extra mile to address food insecurity needs in their community at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and found ways to make those efforts sustainable as it continues. CHILDREN AT RISK recognizes the great value these districts are providing to our students, their families, and our state’s academic and economic future. In partnership with Kroger, we are excited to announce this year’s top-performing school districts.

Key Take-Aways

Prior to the pandemic, 22% of children in Texas lived in food-insecure households, exceeding the United States rate of 13.9 %.

Roughly 70% of school districts (with over 10,000 students) implement the Child and Adult Care Food (CACFP) after-school meal program.

The strongest ten districts had over 67% of eligible students participating in breakfast programs, while the weakest ten districts – including several charter districts – had breakfast participation rates as low as 14-40%.

Laredo ISD had the highest percentage of lunch participation at 87%. Harlandale ISD had the highest percentage of breakfast participation at 86%.

Many charter school systems continue to rank at the bottom of our School Food Rankings and report limited school meal participation. One exception is IDEA Public Schools which continues to rank in our Top Five Districts Overall year after year, this time coming in 2nd among all eligible Texas School Districts.  

There is still work that needs to be done. Too many Texas school districts do not utilize best practice models to deliver food to students. Because of this, Texas continues to miss out on millions of dollars that could keep students fed and ready to learn.

Serving Up Innovation

To serve Texas students well this year demanded a great deal of innovation and ingenuity.  In addition to dealing with the pandemic, many school nutrition departments made efforts this year to add new programs, expand menu choices, and pursue more sustainable practices. Below are a few of the districts we wanted to spotlight for their innovative efforts in this past year.

• Wellington ISD and San Angelo ISD excelled in delivering PM Snacks and shifting to COVID-19 meal sites during the summer of 2020.  Among other changes, these districts changed their menus to better suit pick-ups, redesigned their logistics with suppliers, optimized delivery, and worked to make meals more accessible and convenient to families.

• Clint ISD, Weslaco ISD, Irving ISD, Galena Park ISD, and Edinburg ISD  were menu innovators that worked to support healthy eating patterns and consistently (2-3 times a week) offer substantial vegetarian options for breakfast and lunch and beyond cheese, fruits, and vegetables.

Methodology Overview

Children at Risk’s Food Ranking methodology consists of measuring the participation rate of School Nutrition Programs (SNP) across districts. These districts are then assigned a score based on the participation rates for each program, which is weighted and aggregated. The aggregate scores are ranked from highest to lowest to create the Food Rankings.

School Breakfast is weighted the highest in our analysis for various reasons: research suggests that providing The School Breakfast Program (SBP) can improve student attendance, increases their academic performance, and reduces discipline problems in the classroom. The struggle to obtain a nutritious breakfast particularly affects low-income households, but many families find that early morning schedules make it difficult to find time to prepare and eat a nutritious breakfast at home.

Children at Risk utilizes Texas Department of Agriculture data and Texas Education Agency data to generate the district scores and district rankings.