Why CMS snow days can also mean missing breakfast, lunch for thousands of students
Over the past two weeks, a persistent onslaught of snow and ice made much of Charlotte grind to a halt. For kids in local schools, free school meals stopped, too.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools typically provides free breakfasts at all 186 of its campuses. Free lunches are available to all students at 115 of its campuses, due to them having a high proportion of low-income students. At other campuses, individual students can still qualify for free and reduced-price lunches if their family falls below a certain income threshold.
As of October, more than 33,300 CMS students – or 24% of the district’s total student population – came from families who receive food stamps, automatically qualifying them for free school meals. In total, 68,730 CMS students – or 49% of the district’s total student population – currently receive free and reduced-price lunch.
However, CMS hasn’t had in-person classes much in the last week and a half, due to road conditions.
CMS first canceled classes Jan. 26, operated remotely Jan. 27 and 28 and then started school on a two-hour delay Jan. 29 and 30. That means lunch was served just two days last week. Breakfast wasn’t served at all. This week, CMS canceled classes Monday and went remote Tuesday and Wednesday. CMS returned to a regular schedule Thursday.
When school is out, a lot of students run the risk of going hungry, Tina Postel, executive director of Charlotte-area food insecurity nonprofit Nourish Up told The Charlotte Observer.
“Any time kids are out of school, we will see an uptick in people who need help,” she said. “A lot of parents have to take work off, so then they’re not getting paid, and then they also have to provide two more meals per child than normal, so it’s a double whammy.”
While news outlets urged residents to load up on food ahead of the freeze, Postel said that’s not feasible for a lot of families.
“We definitely saw a spike (in demand) ahead of the freeze,” Postel said. “For families living paycheck-to-paycheck, they can’t go to the grocery store and stock up.”
The week leading up to the season’s first ice storm, Nourish Up served 3,076 people – up from 2,722 the previous week. In the month of January, CMS teachers and social workers have referred 589 individuals to Nourish Up for groceries.
The nonprofit has struggled to get meals and groceries to the people who need them while ice has been on roads, both because residents have a harder time getting to one of its 41 pantries and because volunteers have a harder time making home deliveries.
The organization was closed Jan. 24 and Jan 31, and again on Monday. It operated on a two-hour delay Tuesday but is now back to normal business hours.
“We now have a backlog of people trying to get rescheduled home deliveries and to visit our pantries,” Postel said. “We have so many families shut in who can’t reach their pantry locations, and we need more volunteers right now who feel comfortable driving.”
Most school districts in the region, not just CMS, have canceled school or gone remote in recent weeks, and the announcements they’ve published online aren’t usually accompanied by instructions about where families can pick up lunches or breakfasts, if they’re offered.
That’s because school lunch funding largely comes from the federal government and is dispersed through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, so districts need approval from NCDPI to be able to continue serving meals on days when schools have unanticipated closures.
“Several factors (for example, whether or not a school is offering remote instruction that day) determine which federal program they can use to operate,” Jeanie McDowell, NCDPI director of communications and public information told The Observer in an email. “Because of those variables, NCDPI staff works directly with school nutrition directors across the state to examine their unique situation help determine the best path forward regarding meals while school is out.”
Some local districts did get state approval during the cold snap. For example, Iredell-Statesville Schools offered the option to pick up lunches and breakfasts at N.B. Mills Elementary School Tuesday.
CMS, however, could not serve food during the snow days.
“Icy and unsafe road conditions prevented food service staff from reporting to work and made it unsafe for families to travel to school sites for meal pickup,” a district spokesperson told The Observer.
This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 11:56 AM.
