Section 4 of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act provides general cash for food assistance payments to states to assist schools in purchasing food. The NSLA provides two different section 4 payment levels for lunches served under the NSLP.
FNS invites state agencies that administer the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program to apply to participate in demonstration projects that will evaluate the effectiveness of conducting direct certification with the Medicaid program.
This memorandum clarifies the flexibility available to local educational agency officials for establishing the effective date of eligibility for children certified for free or reduced price meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs and free milk in the Special Milk Program based on household applications.
This rule proposes to amend the eligibility regulations for free and reduced price meals under the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program to codify the statutory provision that establishes the community eligibility provision, a reimbursement option for eligible local educational agencies and schools that wish to offer free school meals to all children in high poverty schools without collecting household applications.
The interim rule entitled Direct Certification and Certification of Homeless, Migrant and Runaway Children for Free School Meals was published on April 25, 2011.
The attached Q&As are issued in follow-up to Policy Memorandum SP 50-2013, Release of the new state agency Direct Certification Rate Data Element Report.
The Food and Nutrition Service published a final rule entitled, National School Lunch Program: Direct Certification Continuous Improvement Plans Required by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, on Feb. 22, 2013.
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 and the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, as amended by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 require that children living in households receiving assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program be directly certified for free school meals under the National School Lunch Program and/or the School Breakfast Program.
This notice corrects a table on page 17630 in the Federal Register issue of Friday, March 22, 2013.
This rule amends the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) regulations to incorporate provisions of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 designed to encourage states to improve direct certification efforts with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).