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Resource | Technical Assistance & Guidance Community Eligibility Provision Resource Center

The CEP resource center provides extensive resources for parents, teachers, and school officials at the local, state and Federal level to better understand CEP and its positive benefits, along with useful tools to help facilitate successful implementation of the provision in your school!

10/12/2023
Basic page Certification of Compliance

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act initially provided an additional 6-cents per lunch reimbursement to school food authorities that were certified to be in compliance with the new meal patterns. The increased reimbursement, a significant investment in improving the quality of school meals, became available starting Oct.1, 2012. School food authorities that continue to maintain certification of compliance continue to receive this performance based funding which is adjusted annually if needed. The current performance based reimbursement rate is 8-cents per reimbursable lunch.

08/18/2023
Basic page Applying for Free and Reduced Price School Meals

USDA offers prototypes of school meal applications, as well as sample instructional documents intended to assist state and local officials in the design and distribution of their own application materials.

05/11/2023
Basic page CN Labeling Program

The USDA, child nutrition (CN) labeling program provides food manufacturers the option to include a standardized food crediting statement on their product label.

02/12/2021
Resource | FAQs/Q&As | FNS-GD-2019-0007 School Meals FAQs

School meals are required to meet specific nutrition standards to operate the school meals programs. The standards align school meals with the latest nutrition science and the real world circumstances of America’s schools. 

02/27/2019
Resource | Policy Memos | FNS-GD-2019-0004 Flexibility for the Administrative Review Cycle Requirement

In school year 2013-14, FNS introduced the unified administrative review and a 3-year review cycle. Since then, FNS has received feedback about the difficulties of the shorter review cycle, both for the state agencies conducting the reviews, and for school food authorities preparing for and responding to reviews.

SP12-2019
02/22/2019
Resource | Comment Request Food Crediting in Child Nutrition Programs - Extension of Comment Period

The purpose of this Request for Information is to help FNS gather feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders on how FNS' crediting system can best address today's evolving food and nutrition environment, as well as to offer first-rate customer service to those operating and benefitting from the child nutrition programs.

02/20/2018
Resource | Comment Request Food Crediting in Child Nutrition Programs: Request for Information

The purpose of this Request for Information is to help FNS gather feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders on how FNS' crediting system can best address today's evolving food and nutrition environment, as well as to offer first-rate customer service to those operating and benefitting from the child nutrition programs.

12/14/2017
Resource | Technical Assistance Performance Based Certification: Prototype Performance Work Statement, Performance Metrics, Evaluation Factors and Market Research Questionnaire Response

Attached for your use is a prototype Performance Work Statement, Evaluation Criteria and Performance Metrics document to assist state agencies that wish to procure a contract(s) to perform the performance-based reimbursement certification and other training activities to support the Certification of Compliance With Meal Requirements for the National School Lunch Program Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 Interim Rule and the new meal pattern final rule.

05/16/2012
Resource | Final Rule Final Rule: School Nutrition Programs Nondiscretionary Technical Amendments

This final rule makes a number of technical changes to the regulations governing the National School Lunch Program, the Special Milk Program for Children, the School Breakfast Program, state administrative expense funds, determining eligibility for free and reduced price meals and free milk in schools.

09/20/1999
Page updated: October 14, 2021