FNS Documents & Resources

The goal of the school meal programs is to provide nutritious meals to children during the school day. Children may receive breakfast and lunch at no cost to them if they are categorically eligible for free meals or if they qualify for free meals based on federal poverty guidelines. Sometimes, however, children who do not qualify based on these standards would like a breakfast or lunch, but do not have money in their account or in-hand to cover the cost of the meal at the time of the meal service.

The purpose of this memorandum is to provide guidance for state agencies and program operators on the status of nationwide waivers of statutory and regulatory requirements in the Summer Food Service Program.

This memorandum provides a reminder overview of options available under current program policy and regulation for connecting children and adult survivors, who have evacuated from areas subject to major disaster and emergency declarations, and may be staying in shelters, with child nutrition program benefits.

This memorandum provides clarification regarding households determined to be categorically eligible for FDPIR in accordance with provisions at sections 4300-4320 of Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Handbook 501.

This guidance provides steps state agencies and school administrators can take to improve access to school meal programs through the application, certification, and verification processes so that all eligible children in NSLP and SBP schools have the opportunity to participate in the school meal programs.

This is a new collection to review and document state and school food authority National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs Management Information Systems in order to provide FNS with a baseline assessment of the MIS system and to inform FNS regarding how states and SFAs use data systems beyond fulfilling FNS reporting requirements.

This is a request for information from Management Information Systems software and hardware vendors and developers to learn about the functionality of state and school food authority National School Lunch and School Breakfast program data management information systems. 

This is a request for information from Management Information Systems software and hardware vendors and developers  to learn about the functionality of state and school food authority NSLP and SBP data management information systems.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA; PL 111-296) required the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to conduct a demonstration that adds Medicaid to the list of programs used to directly certify students for free school meals. Although students receiving Medicaid are not categorically eligible for free meals, the DC-M demonstration authorizes selected States and districts to use income information from Medicaid files to directly certify those students found to be eligible for free meals.