A national drop in food-stamp enrollment could cost some Draper-area schools the federal funding that pays for free breakfast and lunch.

More than 5.6 million people lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) coverage between May 2025 and May 2026, a 13.5% decline, Utah News Dispatch reported Sept. 2. That matters locally because the federal formula that reimburses schools for free meals depends on how many students participate in SNAP.

Five schools in Canyons School District serve universal free meals through the USDA's Community Eligibility Provision (CEP): Copperview, Midvale, East Midvale and Midvalley elementary schools and Midvale Middle School. About a quarter of all Canyons students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, according to district board records. If SNAP participation keeps falling, those schools could see their federal reimbursement shrink or lose CEP eligibility altogether.

The stakes are large. The CEP program covers more than a quarter of the nation's public schools. It calculates reimbursement based on the share of students enrolled in SNAP, Medicaid and other means-tested programs. When fewer families are enrolled, the formula produces a lower reimbursement rate. Children who lose SNAP coverage can also lose automatic eligibility for free school meals.

In 25 states with available data, about 1.2 million children lost SNAP coverage between July 2025 and May 2026, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Clarissa Hayes, deputy director of child nutrition programs and policy at the Food Research & Action Center, told Utah News Dispatch the consequences reach into classrooms. "Cuts to SNAP are not going to stop at the grocery store," Hayes said. "They really are going to threaten children's access to school meals."

Districts elsewhere are already feeling the squeeze. Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida dropped universal free meals at more than 380 of its 500-plus schools this summer after its federal reimbursement eligibility changed, Utah News Dispatch reported.

Utah had one of the nation's lowest SNAP participation rates even before the decline. About 5.1% of Utah residents received benefits as of May 2025, according to Pew Research Center. Roughly 170,000 Utahns were enrolled as of November 2025, NPR reported. Current state figures are not publicly available.

Both Draper-area districts are managing meal-cost pressures. Canyons carried $233,380 in unpaid school lunch debt into the 2025-2026 school year and is now considering price increases that would raise an elementary lunch from $2 to $2.50 and a secondary lunch from $2.25 to $4.

Alpine School District, which serves the Utah County side of Draper, ended the 2025-2026 school year with $586,363 in negative lunch balances spread across more than 14,000 students. Nutrition Services Director Kristine Scott said in an Aug. 28 district announcement that applying for meal benefits "allows us to reach as many students as possible and help ease the burdens put on parents due to rising food prices."

Utah House Bill 100 covers the cost of school meals for students who qualify for reduced-price lunch, but the law does not replace the federal CEP formula that funds universal free meals at high-need schools.

Families in both districts must submit new free and reduced-price meal applications each school year. Alpine applications are open at Linqconnect.com or through paper forms at all schools. Prior-year benefits expire at the end of September.