Senate · Introduced · 2025-2026 Regular Session

SB217: SB217 'Healthy Start"; enact

Last action February 20, 2025 · Senate Read and Referred

Senate Bill 217, the "Healthy Start" act, would expand Georgia's school lunch and breakfast programs so that students who qualify for reduced-price meals get them free, and would require many high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and join a federal no-cost meal program.

In plain language

Georgia currently lets local school systems decide whether to run school breakfast programs and pays into a statewide school lunch program, but reduced-price-eligible students still pay something for meals. This bill rewrites O.C.G.A. section 20-2-187 so the State Board of Education must fund enough to make school lunches, and breakfasts where offered, free for any student who qualifies for reduced-price meals under federal or state rules. It repeals the old, separate school breakfast law (O.C.G.A. section 20-2-66) and folds breakfast rules into the lunch statute instead. Schools or districts where at least 40 percent of students are automatically identified as low-income (or a lower share if federal law allows) would have to run a breakfast program and would have to join the USDA's Community Eligibility Provision, which lets high-poverty schools serve all meals free without individual applications. If federal breakfast funding ever stops, the state would keep reimbursing districts at the last federal rate. The board must also write rules on nutrition standards, eligibility, grant help, and encouraging Georgia grown food in meals.

What the bill does

Requires the State Board of Education to fund school lunches so they are offered at no cost to students who qualify for reduced-price meals under federal or state guidelines.
Repeals the separate school breakfast law (O.C.G.A. section 20-2-66) and moves breakfast program rules into the revised school lunch statute.
Requires local school systems with a school or site where at least 40 percent of students are automatically identified as low-income to establish and support a school breakfast program.
Requires those same high-poverty schools to join the USDA's Community Eligibility Provision, which allows free meals for all students without individual applications, for its full four-year cycle.
Guarantees state reimbursement to districts running breakfast programs at the federal per-meal rate, even if federal breakfast funding stops, using the last available federal rate.
Directs the State Board of Education to write rules covering nutrition standards, eligibility determination, compliance plans, start-up grant assistance, and use of Georgia grown food products.

Who it affects

Public school students statewide, especially those who currently pay for reduced-price meals; local school systems and their food and nutrition staff, who must expand breakfast programs and apply for federal funding provisions; the State Board of Education and Department of Education, which must set new funding levels and rules; and Georgia farmers whose products could be used more in school meals.

Why it matters

Students who now pay a reduced price for school lunches and, where offered, breakfast would get those meals free, and more high-poverty schools would be required to serve breakfast and join a federal program that removes paperwork barriers to free meals. Districts would gain a funding backstop if federal breakfast money disappears.

Key provisions

Section 1 gives the bill the short title "Healthy Start."
Section 2 repeals O.C.G.A. section 20-2-66, the standalone school breakfast law, and reserves the section number.
Section 3 rewrites O.C.G.A. section 20-2-187 to require the State Board of Education to fund lunches so reduced-price-eligible students pay nothing, and adds parallel breakfast funding language.
Subsection (b) requires schools or districts with at least 40 percent identified low-income students to run a breakfast program and sets state reimbursement at the federal per-meal rate, continuing at the last federal rate if federal funds stop.
Subsection (d) requires those same high-poverty schools to participate in the USDA Community Eligibility Provision for its full four-year cycle and directs districts to group schools to maximize eligibility.
Subsection (e) directs the State Board of Education to set minimum nutrition standards, uniform and discreet eligibility rules, compliance plan requirements, start-up grant assistance, and encouragement of Georgia grown produce, dairy, and poultry in meals.
Section 4 repeals conflicting laws.

Status timeline

2025-02-20Senate Read and Referred (Senate)
2025-02-19Senate Hopper (Senate)

Topics

school meals
school breakfast programs
education funding
child nutrition
Georgia grown food