5 coronavirus things: School Nutrition Association pushes for universal free school meals

In this special edition of 5 Things, Food Management highlights five things you may have missed recently about developments regarding coronavirus and its impact on onsite dining.

Here’s your list for today:

Following news that the USDA is extending school meal waivers through next Sept. 30, members of the School Nutrition Association (SNA) are calling on Congress to expand the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs to provide universal free meals indefinitely. The initiative shows how policies enacted to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic have given momentum to efforts that previously were seen as unlikely to be enacted.

Read more: The People Behind School Meals Are Pushing for Free Access for All

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that the city’s public high schools will begin welcoming students back for in-person instruction beginning March 22, starting with about 55,000 high schoolers out of a total high school population of 282,000. New York City shut down its schools in mid-November due to an increasing COVID-19 infection rate but has gradually started bringing students back to classrooms starting with the youngest students and followed by middle school students last month.

Related:13 ways to bust out the bao buns

Read more: New York City public high school students to return to classroom on March 22: mayor

New York University (NYU) students and faculty should expect a return to full in-person classroom instruction for the fall 2021 semester, NYU’s administration has announced. The plan represents an end to the combination of in-person, blended and online courses that have been in place over the past two semesters.

Read more: NYU Plans Return to Classroom Instruction for Fall 2021

Some universities are starting to see residence halls designated as temporary housing for students in COVID-related quarantine or isolation fill up quickly, which necessitates that they implement policies for supplying those students with daily meals in a safe way. The University of Maryland at College Park, for example, saw its quarantine housing go from 54% to 82% full in just one week late last month while Binghamton University had enough students moved into isolation housing to trigger some logistical changes on campus, including shutting down one dining hall to students and turning it into a production center for quarantine meal production.

Related:5 coronavirus things: Survey shows most schools expect to be fully in-person next fall

Read more: Universities See Quarantine, Isolation Spaces Begin to Fill

In a hopeful sign that things may be starting to return to normal, the popular Cups & Company coffee shop located in the basement hallways under the Russell Senate Office Building in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC plans to reopen in early April after shutting down last March due to the COVID-19 crisis. “Having a meeting at Cups is a clear sign of a return to normalcy,” said one regular customer. “The next time I’m at Cups, I’ll feel really good about where we are as a country.”

Read more: Cafe au yay! Cups to reopen in April

Bonus: Building onsite foodservice business in a coronavirus world

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]