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PantryPath Research · School Hunger Atlas

School hunger in Arizona

0% certified free/reduced

Arizona reports 1,928 public schools serving 1,084,139 students. Per-student free and reduced-price certification counts are suppressed in the Common Core of Data for Arizona — see the methodology note below. 405 schools (27% of NSLP participants) operate under Community Eligibility Provision.

1.1M

Students enrolled

1,928

Public schools (CCD)

405

CEP / Provision 2 schools

15

Counties in atlas

Note on Arizona's free/reduced certification counts

Arizona is one of several states where per-student free and reduced-price certification counts are not reliably reported in the 2023–24 Common Core of Data. This can happen when a state operates universal-free meal policies or relies almost entirely on Community Eligibility — students are not individually certified because the school feeds everyone at no charge. School and CEP counts on this page are accurate; the eligibility rate reads as 0% because the underlying per-student counts are suppressed, not because no students qualify. See methodology for details.

Arizona by county

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Toggle between the school-food-access composite, free/reduced eligibility, CEP share, direct-certification rate, and SAIPE school-age poverty. Hover a county to see schools, enrollment, and the underlying certification mix.

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Lower
Higher

Arizona at a glance

Free/reduced

0.0%

Share of enrollment

CEP share

27%

Of NSLP schools

Direct cert

37.0%

SNAP/TANF/Medicaid

NSLP schools

76%

Serve NSLP meals

5–17 in poverty

15.0%

Census SAIPE 2023

Access score

0.24

Composite 0–1

The access score is a 0–1 composite weighted 50% eligibility, 30% CEP share, 20% NSLP share — a visualization and ranking aid, not a direct measurement. See methodology.

County-level hotspots

Top five counties across 15 in Arizona.

Highest free/reduced share

Certified ≤185% FPL per enrollment

  1. 1 Apache 0.0%
  2. 2 Cochise 0.0%
  3. 3 Coconino 0.0%
  4. 4 Gila 0.0%
  5. 5 Graham 0.0%

Highest CEP adoption

Of NSLP schools — min. 3 NSLP schools

  1. 1 Apache 82%
  2. 2 Santa Cruz 69%
  3. 3 Yuma 68%
  4. 4 Navajo 56%
  5. 5 Coconino 42%

Largest enrollment

Total students in CCD universe

  1. 1 Maricopa 714K
  2. 2 Pima 136K
  3. 3 Pinal 60K
  4. 4 Yuma 38K
  5. 5 Yavapai 24K

Every county in Arizona

All 15 counties with school counts, enrollment, certification mix, CEP adoption, and the SAIPE 5–17 poverty backdrop.

County Schools Enrollment Free/reduced CEP Direct cert 5–17 poverty Access
Apache 39 9,660 0.0% 82% 61.1% 35.7% 0.41
Cochise 63 17,595 0.0% 35% 41.6% 18.4% 0.27
Coconino 44 16,495 0.0% 42% 38.5% 21.0% 0.28
Gila 28 7,561 0.0% 41% 59.2% 26.2% 0.28
Graham 22 6,843 0.0% 16% 38.2% 21.0% 0.22
Greenlee 6 1,939 0.0% 0% 25.6% 9.1% 0.17
La Paz 11 2,193 0.0% 25% 57.4% 31.6% 0.22
Maricopa 1,054 713,994 0.0% 18% 33.8% 13.0% 0.20
Mohave 61 23,590 0.0% 38% 43.3% 22.8% 0.26
Navajo 51 16,669 0.0% 56% 54.6% 28.6% 0.34
Pima 271 135,844 0.0% 37% 39.6% 16.5% 0.28
Pinal 110 60,301 0.0% 26% 40.7% 11.8% 0.24
Santa Cruz 24 10,196 0.0% 69% 46.3% 28.3% 0.32
Yavapai 78 23,716 0.0% 17% 37.7% 16.2% 0.17
Yuma 66 37,543 0.0% 68% 52.6% 21.3% 0.32

Arizona school meals guide

How free and reduced-price school lunch eligibility works, application steps, and what to do if your child's school is not in CEP.

School meals guide

Summer meals

When the school year ends, NSLP and CEP stop. The Summer Food Service Program and Summer EBT fill the gap for the 0 children who rely on school meals in Arizona.

Summer meals guide

Families with children

SNAP, WIC, Head Start, and the full federal-program stack for households with kids — the assistance ecosystem around the school cafeteria.

Families guide

Arizona child poverty

The sibling atlas — county-level child poverty across Arizona. Free/reduced eligibility and child poverty track each other closely but not perfectly.

Arizona child poverty atlas

Arizona pantries

Verified food pantries, food banks, and meal programs across Arizona — open weeknights, weekends, and through the summer gap.

Arizona pantry directory

Methodology

How we aggregated NCES Common Core of Data school-level records to counties, proxied CEP from lunch_program == 2, and layered SAIPE school-age poverty — plus the access-score formula.

Full methodology