What is the National School Lunch Program?

Recently it occurred to me that there aren't a lot of common places to find resources that pertain to school nutrition. I thought it would be potentially helpful to start compiling my favorite resources that I frequently use to help others.

Before I dive directly into all these resources. I wanted to go into what is the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and why are there all these rules and regulations?

The NSLP program has been around for many years, 1946 to be exact! The goal of the program is to make sure that there is food provided to each and every child who walks in to a school cafeteria. If you live below the 130% of the poverty line, you may qualify for free or reduced meal prices. If you qualify for the program you will be eligable for both breakfast and lunch. I've talked to so many parent's that just think they get free lunch, they don't read their full letter explaining that they also get FREE breakfast! That can be so helpful for families if their schools offer breakfast.

When people apply and if they qualify, they are qualified for the entire school year. This is great for families who are going through a hard time, this gives them a little breathing room to get caught up on bills/life. Examples: Mom or Dad lose a job, and their income now qualifies them for free meals in November they can apply and be qualified through the beginning of the next school year. In most districts theres usually about a month into the next year that benefits overlap.

Do some people lose benefits? Yes, there's a small fraction of people 3% that are "randomly selected" each states Department of Education regulated and requests the verification for income for the randomly selected applications. These application are pulled for verification. This system is set up to try to encourage honesty. Sometimes this process does find that some people might have given faulse information. Once they send in their information their application will be run through again to see if their status changes. Some people may lose benefits, and some people might go from reduced to free. It just depends on those specific applications and what is going on with the family And if their income matches their original paperwork.

That was a long winded definition on the applications and a snip of what goes into them. The beauty of being apart of this program allows us to claim that we are feeding these kids. If students are free, they will come through the normal lunch line, just like all other students. All student's enter their personal pin, swipe their ID, tap their picture (ect.) their account gets charged. For families that are qualified for these reduced or free meals, their accounts automatically run through. It doesn't flash FREE STUDENT, or Alert that THIS KID is FREE. No, nothing like that. The students walk through the line like all other students receive ALL the same meal options as all the other kids. All student's that participate, their status is confidential.

Since we are apart of the NSLP we are required to follow some rules. One being that application status's are confidential, but many other rules and regulations. Some of these rules pertain to nutrition, Meeting my My Plate from the USDA, Finacially being a non-profit, meeting all health regulations per state regulations and more. This program is a federally funded program, and all states follow these guidelines. No matter if you live in AZ or New York, if your school participates in the National School Lunch Program you will find the same rules and regulations across the states.

Some states might have a little bit of tighter regulations as each state department is in charge of making sure the districts follow the guidelines to receive reimbursement for their students. You might be thinking, or have heard that some schools offer free meals to all students, why or how does that work?

If a school is above a certain % free and reduced students they can offer all meals free. You might see this at a title one school that has 85% of the students on Free and Reduced meals. The district foodservice director can opt into CEP (community eleigible program) to be able to make it free for everyone. Each school has to evaluate if that will work for them, that's a whole post for another day. But long story short those are still apart of the national school lunch program it's just a way that schools will claim their reimbursement to cover the cost's of free or reduced students.

Overall, this program is set up to help families out in the community. It has a lot regulations to to make sure that the money is going where it’s suppose to. In the long run this programs serves a large community all across the US.

Questions, Thoughts or Concers? Shoot me an email: schoolnutritionsmiles@gmail.com

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