ATTENTION:  CO-OP DIRECTORS AND CHILD NUTRITION DIRECTORS

All LEAs are required annually to report the percentage of Identified Students as of April 1 in EACH school in the LEA to the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) Child Nutrition Unit (CNU).

All Local Education Agencies (LEAs) who participate in the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act must report the percentage of students eligible to receive meals at no charge to the family through direct certification or categorical lists.  The students participate in the free school breakfast and lunch programs without the completion of an application.  LEAs are required to provide this information through Identified Student Percentage reporting.  Section 104(a) of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 amended the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to provide the Community Eligibility Provision as an alternative to household applications for free and reduced price meal eligibility in high poverty Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) and schools.

Identified Students:  Identified Students are defined as “students certified for free meals based on documentation of benefit receipt or categorical eligibility as described in 7 CFR 245.6a(c)(2)…”  Students who are directly certified for free meals based on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), students who are categorically eligible for free meals based on homeless, runaway, migrant, foster, Head Start, and Even Start.

·        Identified Students includes:  any student living in the household of a SNAP directly certified student.

·        Identified Students DOES NOT INCLUDE: students who are eligible based on submission of a SNAP meal application or income application.

The following documents should be compiled before beginning the completion of the report.

1. Direct certification lists for 2017 – 2018 school year.  Direct certification reports were made available on August 8, 2017, September 21, 2017, January 15, 2018 and March 12, 2018.  LEAs are required to use at least three of these pulls to update eSchool student eligibility status.
2. Categorical lists pulled on April 2, 2018.  Each list should be signed and dated by the district liasion for the designated group:  Homeless, migrant, foster, runaway, Headstart or Evenstart.  This is documentation of a student’s status for April 2, 2018.
3. Cognos Report:  APSCN Meal Status Report for Selected Date (April 2, 2018)
4. School Enrollment Roster pulled on April 2, 2018
5. Cognos Report:  Family Address List Report (This report is not required but is beneficial when determining students who live in the same household.)
6. Instant Matches from the Direct Certification portal dated April 2, 2018 or earlier
7. Any other documentation that allows a student not on the DC list to be classified as “04” in the meal status report.

April 16^th Notification and Data Collection:

To complete the required reports, each LEA must use:

(1) district-level eligibility data provided to LEAs by State agencies; and

(2) school-level eligibility data provided to State agencies by LEAs.

Reporting Percentage of Identified Students by School to ADE CNU:

Attachment A - 2018 ISP District Notification Report provides the LEA the district-wide percentage of Identified Students based on FNS-742 Verification Collection Report and the FNS-834 State Agency (National School Lunch Program (NSLP)/Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)) Direct Certification Rate Data Element Report, submitted by LEA SY2016-2017.  THIS INFORMATION INDICATES IDENTIFIED STUDENTS FOR OCTOBER 1, 2017.

Attachment B - 2018 ISP School Level Annual Notification Report is the form the LEA must submit to ADE CNU by April 16, 2018.  Please read the instructions tab as well as the instructions on the top of the form carefully.  The form must be completed and emailed to ADE CNU at ade.chnutcep@arkansas.gov no later than April 16, 2018.

By May 1 of each year, ADE CNU is required to publish the lists of eligible and near-eligible LEAs and schools on the ADE CNU website and submit these lists to the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) for publication on FNS’ CEP website.

Attachments

A - 2018 ISP District Notification Report

B - 2018 ISP School Level Annual Notification Report

Attachments