Albany High School Offers Free School Lunch for All Students

Students wait in line to receive lunch at the new serving location in the gym lobby. This location currently provides breakfast foods during break and sandwiches and salads during lunch.

By Xinxin Duan

Following a new law passed in the spring of 2021, Albany High School has begun to provide free meals to all of its students.

According to Executive Chef Sabina Feinberg, the USDA requires that free meals be provided to students of all schools in the nation during the 2021-2022 school year due to the special conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, but schools in California will continue to do this in future school years. Mr. McNally explained that the new school meal program is a self-funded program, meaning that there is no extra cost for the Food Services department.

The implementation of the free meal program has caused the number of students getting school meals to rise significantly. According to Ms. Feinberg, the daily average of AHS students receiving school lunches increased from 139 students in the 2019-20 school year to 317 students this school year.

The main difficulty is “getting all students through,” said Mr. McNally. Ms. Feinberg said, “We are feeding more students than ever in the same space, with the same amount of staff, and with the same amount of storage space we had before.”

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