FNS Documents & Resources

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.

Letter to Households: Notification of Selection for Verification of Eligibility

This notice corrects a table on page 17630 in the Federal Register issue of Friday, March 22, 2013.

USDA Food and Nutrition Service policy memo SP 26-2013, "Extending Flexibility in the Meat/Meat Alternate and Grains Maximums for School Year 2013-14" extends the flexibility regarding Meat/Meat Alternate (M/MA) maximums for SY 2013-13, allowing state agencies to assess compliance based on the minimum daily and weekly serving requirements only.  

This memorandum has been superseded by SP10 CACFP04 SFSP03-2015: Area Eligibility in Child Nutrition Programs.

As described in our Reauthorization Implementation Memo SP 4, Categorical Eligibility for Free Lunches and Breakfasts of Runaway, Homeless, and Migrant Youth,  runaway youth served through grant programs established under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act are now categorically eligible for free meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs.

Effective July 1, 2004, school officials verifying income eligibility for free and reduced price meals must allow households to provide documentation of income for any point in time between the month prior to application and the time the household is required to provide income documentation.

This memorandum supplements our Reauthorization Implementation Memo SP 4 by providing additional information on identifying migrant children and on the procedures that school food authorities and local education agencies should use to coordinate with the Migrant Education Program in order to document the categorical eligibility of migrant children for free meals.