About 3,000 school districts will be newly eligible this coming school year to opt into a federal reimbursement program that allows high-poverty schools to serve free meals, under a federal regulation finalized in September.
Known as the Community Eligibility Provision, the program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture allows all students in a school, a group of schools or an entire district, to receive free meals without requiring families to fill out applications for the aid.
As of April 1, schools became eligible for CEP if their “identified student percentage” — or the percentage of enrolled students certified as eligible for free school meals — is at least 25%.
Before the USDA’s final rule, that threshold was 40%.
While more schools will have access to the Community Eligibility Provision under the new rule, the lower a school’s identified student percentage is, the less funding they will receive in federal reimbursement, said Erin Kennedy Hysom, child nutrition policy analyst at the Food Research and Action Center. The percentage of meals covered for federal reimbursement for a district is calculated by multiplying 1.6 with the identified student percentage, she said.
The number of schools participating in CEP hit its peak in the 2022-23 school year with 40,235 schools opting in. Overall, CEP participation has steadily risen since the 2014-15 school year, when 14,184 schools initially tapped into the program.
As more schools consider signing up for the program, FRAC recently held a webinar where school district nutrition directors shared how they have leveraged CEP to help run fiscally responsible nutrition programs. Here are three takeaways.
Explore your data
Sometimes, implementing the Community Eligibility Provision across an entire school district isn’t the most effective avenue budget-wise.
For instance, at Bossier Parish Schools in Louisiana, the 22,500-student district with 34 schools would lose $678,000 per year if it used the federal provision at the district level, said Karla Boudreaux Horton, the district’s child nutrition director. That's because its districtwide identified student percentage last year was 42.09%, whereas Horton found that four clusters of schools had ISPs ranging from 64% to 99%.
When Horton calculated that scenario using four different clusters of schools, she found the district would have about $615,000 in surplus if it grouped the schools.
That’s why it’s crucial that nutrition directors explore their data and calculate different scenarios using different clusters of schools to stretch the federal reimbursement they are entitled to, Horton said.
“We’re able to maximize our profit, because the higher-feeding schools are at a higher reimbursement rate,” Horton said. “Just playing with the numbers, getting an ideal cluster together can make a huge difference on your revenue and impact.”
Free online tools like nonprofit No Kid Hungry’s Meals Count calculator are available to help districts figure out the best way to use the Community Eligibility Provision, according to Horton.
Communicate and understand the data
While online tools are useful, Horton said, it’s equally important to know what the data means — especially when nutrition directors are advising a superintendent or a school board about why a certain school should not opt into CEP. Horton suggests that nutrition directors explain, for example, why a school's or group of schools' identified student percentage is too low to benefit from participating in the program.
Additionally, Horton said school nutrition directors should always look at CEP data anew, as each year provides a new opportunity to explore updated data and try again.
Christy Smith, food and nutrition supervisor at Boise School District in Idaho, agreed that communication is crucial if a school has to stop participating in the program. In that situation, Smith said, she monitors data to help prepare a school for ending the provision. The 22,300-student district has an overall ISP of 46.66% across its 46 schools, Smith said.
Consider new breakfast programs
Arkansas’ Jacksonville North Pulaski School District has been able to make the Community Eligibility Provision work for all of its seven schools by implementing a breakfast-in-the-classroom program, said Clint Walker, the district's director of child nutrition.
The 4,200-student district has a 53.25% identified student percentage. Without moving breakfast into classrooms, participating in CEP would put the district about $186,000 in debt per year, after adjusting for current sales in addition to food and labor costs, he said.
However, with the breakfast program, the district’s food service program has increased its revenue by $5,500 per day and will be without any debt for the current school year. The program has also helped increase student participation in school breakfasts, he said.
Smith also saw success at Boise School District’s elementary schools when they implemented their own "breakfast after the bell" program, in which students serve themselves as they enter the school building, alongside CEP. In fact, she said, breakfast participation skyrocketed 400% in elementary schools with the provision compared to those without it. Participation in school lunch increased more modestly, but still a healthy 40% with the provision, she said.
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