Community Eligibility Provision and Provision 2 Status

The CEP was implemented by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The CEP allows high-poverty schools to eliminate the administrative burden of school meal applications and still serve breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students so that they can be fueled and ready to learn. Schools that have implemented the CEP have experienced striking increases in school meal participation, and many reported improved attendance.

Facts

• The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a new alternate meal counting and collection procedure Provision that was made available to all schools nationwide beginning in School Year (SY) 2014−15.

• The CEP reduces application burdens to once every four years.

• Schools on the CEP will never collect meal eligibility applications, complete the Verification Process, or categorize the meals as free, reduced-price, or paid when serving the meals.

• Breakfast and lunch must be served at no cost to all students in schools that are on the CEP.

• CEP schools must have a minimum identified student percentage (ISP) of 40 percent, based on enrollment, to participate in the CEP.

• Identified students are those who are directly certified for meals at no cost on the basis of their participation in CalFresh, CalWORKs, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, and Medi-Cal free, and the extension of these benefits go to students within the same household. Also included are students certified as homeless, migrant, foster, runaway, or participating in the Head Start program.

• The ISP is determined by dividing the number of identified students, as of April 1 of the SY prior to starting the CEP, by the number of enrolled students as of the same date, and multiplying the quotient by 100.

• Schools may qualify individually or as a group to reach the ISP threshold of 40 percent.

• The reimbursement rate for both lunch and breakfast is determined by multiplying the ISP by a factor of 1.6. The resulting number is the percent of meals reimbursed at the free reimbursement rate, with the remaining meals reimbursed at the paid rate. No meals are reimbursed at the reduced-price rate while schools participate in the CEP. For example, a school with an ISP of 50 percent would be reimbursed at the free rate of 80 percent of the breakfasts and lunches it served (50 percent x 1.6 = 80 percent) and the remaining 20 percent would be reimbursed at the paid rate.

• Schools, or a group of schools, with an ISP of 62.5 percent or higher may be eligible to be reimbursed at the free meal rate for all meals served.

• All students receive two healthy meals at no charge. Students that have access to better nutrition tend to perform better academically, have better health, and maintain better school attendance.

• Paperwork for schools and families is dramatically reduced. Schools participating in the CEP no longer have to collect and certify applications or complete the annual Verification Process.

• Meal lines will move more quickly, because meal counting and claiming is simplified. Staff will not have to categorize each meal served as free, reduced-price, or paid.

Contact Information
If you have questions about the CEP, contact your School Nutrition Program County Specialist. A list of specialist names with contact information is available in the Child Nutrition Information Payment System Download Forms section entitled "Caseload". You may also contact the Nutrition Services Division at 800-952-5609.

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See below for Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) and Provision 2 Eligibility for schools in the Schools in Action School Food Authority