In most states, school districts do not have a choice. Only a few have passed laws allowing them to “opt-out”, if they calculate they can feed the students just as well or better on their own.
Importantly, for decades the feds have piggybacked all sorts of regulations and requirements on top of the SLP, so if schools leave it, they might actually have *more* money to spend, not just on food, but other things. The threat was unless the schools obeyed, they would lose their funding.
And with the added bonus that they no longer have federal leftism forced down their throats any more. No more wasting the students time filling out federal surveys and mandating 1st grade sex education, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
state leftism in places like Kalipornia and MA can be worse than the federal leftism
It’s all about MONEY.