FNS Documents & Resources

When eligibility is determined using an application process, school districts must annually verify eligibility of children from a sample of household applications for that school year, unless the state agency assumes responsibility for verification.

This memorandum consolidates the recent policy changes in the NSLP,  SBP, and SFSP that affect the implementation of the Seamless Summer Option. This memorandum and its attachment supersede SP 37-2015, 2015 Edition of Questions and Answers for the National School Lunch Program’s Seamless Summer Option, May 22, 2015.

Statistical models were designed to estimate national improper payments due to certification error on an annual basis using district-level data. This enables FNS to update its estimates of national improper payment rates for the NSLP and SBP in future years without having to conduct full rounds of primary data collection.

The Special Nutrition Program Operations Study is a multiyear study designed to provide the Food and Nutrition Service with a snapshot of current state and school food authority policies and practices of the school meal programs, including information on school meal standards, competitive foods standards, professional standards, school lunch pricing and accounting, and Smarter Lunchrooms activities. 

The information in this second year report (school year 2012-13), the first year new lunch standards were implemented, will provide data for observing the improvements resulting from the implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Data was collected from a survey of all state child nutrition directors and a nationally representative sample of school food authorities.

This White Paper examines whether any additional means-tested programs might be feasible for use in the direct certification of school-age children participating in school meals or for verification of household income on meal applications.

This memorandum provides general guidance on the various procurement groups FNS has identified, how to use each group in a way that complies with federal procurement standards, and supersedes SP 35-2012, Procuring Services of Purchasing Cooperatives, Group Purchasing Organizations, Group Buying Organizations, etc., dated June 12, 2012.

This memorandum shares updates to the Fiscal Year “Reporting Table” and “Reporting Timeline” previously provided in memo SP21-2016 issued on December 28, 2015.

The second Access, Participation, Eligibility and Certification Study (APEC II) included a follow-on report that provided statistically-derived state-level estimates of school meals erroneous payments. However, while APEC II provided a rough indicator of relative risk for groups of states (e.g., higher than average, about average, lower than average), it was not a state-representative direct measure, and creating actual annual measures of such erroneous payments at the state level using APEC methodology is cost-prohibitive. This report explores alternative approaches to developing measurement-based state-specific estimates that are responsive to year-to-year changes in the actual underlying rate in each state. It also provides cost and burden estimates for the implementation of each of these methods.

This notice announces the national average value of donated foods or, where applicable, cash in lieu of donated foods, to be provided in school year 2017 (July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017) for each lunch served by schools participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and for each lunch and supper served by institutions participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).