FNS Documents & Resources

School nutrition professionals continue to make school meals the healthiest meals children eat in a day! To take school meals to the next level, USDA is updating the school nutrition standards after considering recommendations from the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans and listening to a diverse range of voices with experience in child nutrition and health.

This guidance updates previously issued Questions and Answers to clarify SFSP requirements. It supersedes SFSP 05-2017, Summer Food Service Program Questions and Answers, Dec. 1, 2016.

Students thrive in a healthy school nutrition environment. Strengthen, energize, and renew your school’s efforts to support healthy choices with these ready-to-go resources.

Los estudiantes se desarrollan en un entorno de nutrición escolar saludable. Renueve, fortalezca, revitalice y fomente los esfuerzos de su escuela para apoyar las opciones saludables con estos recursos listos para usar.

This fact sheet, available in both English and Spanish, reviews the steps to successfully integrate local food in child nutrition programs.

FNS has used its authority under FFRCA to waive certain onsite monitoring requirements for the school meals programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the Summer Food Service Program, so that programs can to maintain program integrity and support social distancing while providing meals. 

This memo announces a new set of child nutrition program waivers for school year 2021-2022. Since March 2020, USDA has worked to ensure state agencies, schools and other community partners have the tools they need to maintain children’s access to nutritious meals during COVID-19.

This waiver cancels selected administrative data reporting requirements in the child nutrition programs, specifically the following: FNS-640 Administrative Review Report Form; FNS-828 School Food Authority Paid Lunch Price Report; FNS-874 Local Educational Agency Second Review of Applications; Ameliorative Action Plans for Verification Results; State Agency Food Safety Inspections Report; and Performance-Based Reimbursement (7 Cents) Quarterly Report.

Under this waiver, Summer Food Service Program and the National School Lunch Program Seamless Summer Option operators in states that elect to be subject to this waiver may serve meals at school sites during unanticipated school closures in school year 2021-22.

Under this waiver, service institutions operating the Summer Food Service Program in states, whose agencies elect to be subject to this waiver, may operate open sites in areas that are not located in “Areas in which poor economic conditions exist” during unanticipated school closures in school year 2021-2022.