FNS Documents & Resources

A Flash of Food Safety is an educational video series designed to help busy school nutrition professionals understand and practically apply safe food practices. The videos, available in English and Spanish, address five food safety topics: Handwashing: Why to Wash Your Hands, Handwashing: How to Wash Your Hands, Calibrating a Thermometer: Ice Water Method, Calibrating a Thermometer: Boiling Water Method, and Active Cooling with a Chill Stick.

This policy memorandum includes important updates to requirements related to accommodating children with disabilities participating in the school meal programs.

The Food and Nutrition Service conducted the Direct Certification with Medicaid (DC-M) demonstration that enables selected States and districts to use household income data from Medicaid files to directly certify students for free school meals. This report focuses on the experiences of States and districts conducting DC-M during School Year (SY) 2013-2014, the second year of the demonstration. It examines whether DC-M leads to changes in the percentage of students certified, the number of meals served, Federal reimbursements, and certification costs incurred by districts. It also assesses State-level administrative costs and identifies the challenges that States and districts face when implementing DC-M.

In this webinar, we’ll share local food safety best practices, including identifying safety measures for school gardens and school salad bars.