Monthly Archives: May 2016

Food Service Software, Nutrition Softwares, School Lunch Software

The School Breakfast Program is one of the most important and unique programs run by Foodbank WA.

The School Breakfast Program (SBP) is one of the most important and unique programs run by Foodbank WA. The program commenced in 2001, with 17 schools registering in response to a growing awareness that students were going to school most days without eating breakfast. Over 430 schools across the state are now involved in the Program, stretching from Kalumburu and Kununurra in the north to Esperance and Albany in the south, to remote schools along the South Australia/Northern Territory borders. The Program directly reaches over 17,000 children, serving over 55,700 breakfasts and 22,800 ’emergency’ meals per week.

Foodbank WA supplies quality School Breakfast Program food products to registered schools free of charge, to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to receive a wholesome, nutritious breakfast on a regular basis. Non-perishable SBP product include canned fruit in natural juice, wheat biscuits, oats, Vegemite, canned spaghetti, canned baked beans and UHT milk.. Where possible (subject to availability) schools are able to access fresh produce, including bread, fresh fruit and vegetables and yoghurt.

The School Breakfast Program would not be possible without the generous support of Foodbank WA’s government, corporate and philanthropic sponsors. These organisations provide funding so that Foodbank is able to purchase the breakfast food items and pay for the freight to deliver the breakfast product to outlying regional schools.

School Breakfast Program Impact

With respect to educational factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • Student punctuality by 81% of schools
  • Student attendance by 83% of schools
  • Student behaviour by 90% of schools
  • Student academic outcomes by 76% of schools
  • Student concentration by 95% of schools
  • Students’ social skills by 89% of schools
  • Student engagement with class activities by 81% of schools

With respect to wellbeing factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • Students’ physical health by 97% of schools
  • Students’ mental health by 91% of schools

With respect to nutrition factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • Students’ awareness of healthy eating by 90% of schools
  • Student food selection and food preparation skills by 75% of schools
  • Student eating behaviours generally by 86% of schools

With respect to social and environmental factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • The health promoting environment of the school by 93% of schools
  • Social relations between students and school staff by 91% of schools
  • Social relations between students and community members by 74% of schools

To view the 2014 School Breakfast Program Survey Report in full, please visit the Research & Evaluation tab.

Food Service Software, School Lunch Software, Software for Cafeteria

A taste of school lunches around world

A taste of school lunches around world

Assorted lunch plates are arranged at a table for students at the Bahria Foundation school in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Tuesday, May 6, 2014. Most of the kids seen there have home cooked food for lunch. Principal Syeda Arifa Mohsin says the school tries to dissuade parents from fixing junk food for their children. “If we discover that a child has junk food, we ask his or her parents to please make a little effort for their child’s health,” Mohsin says. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

SEATTLE (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to make American school lunches healthier by replacing greasy pizza and french fries with whole grains, low fat protein, fresh fruit and vegetables.

The Associated Press helps you compare her efforts in the United States with what kids are eating around the globe by sending photographers to see what kids in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America ate for lunch this week.

The new American standards are giving kids in the United States a taste of the good life already experienced by school children around the world. Most countries put a premium on feeding school children a healthy meal at lunchtime.

Many kids go home to eat lunch with their families or bring a lunch cooked by their parents.

Although few schools sell lunch, snacks are available around the world. In many places those snacks are as unhealthy as treats in the United States: fried doughnuts in Mali and Pakistan, candy in the West Bank, fried chicken nuggets in France.

American children are more likely to eat a lunch made in a school cafeteria, although other countries are starting to adopt this practice as more mothers go to work outside the home.

In France, lunch is an art form: hot, multi-course and involving vegetables. While their mothers were at work Tuesday, children in Lambersart in northern France were served ratatouille, salmon, rice, a chunk of baguette and an orange.

Healthy lunches are offered in public school cafeterias in the United Arab Emirates but the children of foreigners attending private schools get fancier, multi-cultural offerings like American barbecue, Indian curries and Asian noodles.

Cuba provides all students with free school lunches, typically featuring rice, beans, another source of protein like a hard-boiled egg, a vegetable such as a sliced tomato and arroz con leche for dessert. Many parents send their children off to school with extra vegetables or a piece of fish or chicken to complement the free lunch.

Fresh food is also on the menu at the DEL-Care Edu Center in downtown Singapore, where students are fed breakfast, lunch and even dinner if their parents work late. Typical lunches include spaghetti marinara, fish slices, chicken casserole or lotus root soup.

Kids usually bring a home-cooked meal to school in Pakistan, where school leaders check lunch boxes for junk food and admonish parents to keep things healthy. A typical sack lunch at The Bahria Foundation school in Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, includes eggs, chicken nuggets, bread, rice or noodles. Some also include leftovers such as minced mutton and vegetables cooked the night before.

Ecuadorean children bring sack lunches to school, typically a sandwich, juice, yogurt, cookies and piece of fruit.

In Federal Way, Washington, schools have embraced the first lady’s lunch campaign for the approximately 16,000 children who get a school-made lunch each day.

At Mirror Lake Elementary, about 20 miles south of Seattle, students ate grilled cheese sandwiches, corn salad, fresh carrots, apple sauce and low-fat milk on Monday. The bread was whole grain, the cheese low fat and low sodium, the carrots fresh and fruit the only dessert.

Fried food, white bread, sugar-laden desserts and overcooked vegetables have all but disappeared from the American school menu.

Anything kids can pick up with their fingers is popular in the younger grades. High school students enjoy some spicy and exotic choices, especially Asian flavors, says Federal Way chef and dietitian Adam Pazder.

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AP reporters Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali, Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Israel, Sameer Yacoub in Baghdad, Iraq, Nasser Nasser in Ramallah, West Bank, Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Angela Charlton in Paris and Anjum Naveed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Delores Ochoa from Ecuador, and photographers Wong Maye-E in Singapore and Franklin Reyes in Havana, Cuba, contributed to this story.

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Follow AP photographers on Twitter:

—https://twitter.com/AP/ap-photographers/members

Software for School Cafeteria

Brown Bag or Cafeteria Tray, Kids Don’t Eat Healthy School Lunch

Megan Scudellari
November 25, 2014 — 2:30 AM IST

Schoolchildren aren’t exactly gobbling up the healthy lunches they were meant to eat under a national nutrition program, two new studies suggest.

Students purchasing school lunch only select a fruit or vegetable about half the time, and even then, the majority of them don’t eat even a single bite, according to research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Kids who bring lunch from home aren’t faring any better. Those brown bags are packed with significantly fewer fruits and vegetables, plus more salt and sugar, than school-provided lunches, according to a team from Baylor College of Medicine.

The studies highlight the gaps in the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, a reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, passed by Congress in 2010 with new provisions to raise government-subsidized lunches to higher nutrition standards. Notable changes in schools across the country include new minimum and maximum calorie counts and increased servings of fruits, veggies and whole grains.

“So many children in our country may eat as many as two of their meals a day in the schools,” said Susan Gross, a nutritionist and dietitian at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore who led the first study. “And if that’s two-thirds of their consumption, we should make it as healthy as possible.”

The National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, served 5.1 billion midday meals last year, while the School Breakfast Program delivered 2.2 billion meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture administers the lunch program with the participation of more than 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools, along with child-care institutions. In exchange for serving meals that meet government requirements, the schools get subsidies and food from the USDA.

Single Bite?

“There’s been a lot of emphasis on menus and what kind of food is being offered to the kids,” Gross said. There hasn’t been as much attention on whether children are eating those foods or what foods are brought from home, she said.

The Hopkins study, presented last week at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting, observed 274 6- to 8-year-olds in New York City public schools as they selected what to eat in the lunchroom. Only 58 percent chose a fruit and 59 percent chose a vegetable, and just 24 percent of those who opted for vegetables ate even a single bite.
Eating Environment

The researchers also found a major influence on how much healthy food children ate: the cafeteria environment. Children were more likely to eat healthy foods when it was quieter in the cafeteria; when the food was cut up into smaller pieces like apple slices; when lunch periods were longer; and when teachers were eating lunch in the same cafeteria.

“We saw a big jump in consumption if these factors were controlled, and they aren’t expensive things to control for,” Gross said.

Additionally, parents can encourage their children to pick and eat healthy options by reviewing school menus ahead of time, Gross said.

Regulations from the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act are making a big difference in government-funded meals, but they don’t address lunches brought from home.

“This component of the school food environment is basically avoided by public health policy and rarely addressed by investigators,” said Virginia Stallings, a nutrition pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in an editorial.
Home-Lunch Study

The Baylor study, published online yesterday by JAMA Pediatrics, examined lunches of 337 students, kindergarten through eighth grade, in a Houston area school district. Lunches brought from home contained almost double the amount of sodium as government meal program lunches, 40 percent less fruit and 88 percent fewer vegetables. Additionally, 90 percent of packed lunches included desserts, chips or sweetened beverages — not permitted in school lunch program meals — and students almost always entirely consumed them.

Parents can improve packed lunches by planning and making lunch with their children.

“It’s an opportune time for parents to talk about what’s healthy and what kinds of food you should be eating, not just putting in foods they want to have,” said Karen Cullen, a professor of pediatrics and nutrition at Baylor who led the study.

Of course, it can be difficult to convince children to eat healthy options, all three researchers said. For healthy meal and snack ideas, Cullen recommends the USDA’s Choose My Plate website.

“One of the most important things for kids is exposure. We know it takes 10 to 20 times for a child to adapt to the taste of a new food,” Stallings said in an interview. “Parents have to not give up.”
Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal.

Food Service Software, Nutrition Softwares, School Lunch Software, Software for Cafeteria

Free and reduced school lunch applications now online

VINELAND – The school district is not mailing out free or price-reduced lunch applications this year, instead it’s asking parents/guardians to apply online.

This is another online service the district can now offer through PCS Revenue Systems, the district’s food service accounting software, said Helen Haley, the district’s business administrator.

Previously, the school district included an application with a parent notification letter about the lunch program. When the applications came back, she said, the information was cross-referenced with the district’s student database and manually typed in by staff.

Now, the applications will be electronically entered, she said.

About 6,000 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, said Purvesh Patel, the Sodexo food service director for Vineland Public Schools.

Parents fill out one electronic application per household, Patel said, noting the applications are available in English and Spanish.

The online applications are available by clicking here:

https://paypams.com/OnlineApp.aspx

“People can do it on their phone it is so easy,” Haley said.

It’s a secure website and a Social Security number is not requested on the application, Patel said. The school district processes the applications, which are then subject to review by State of New Jersey auditors to prevent fraud.

The online application process is an expansion of the district’s PayPams program.

Last year, the district used it to roll out an online application that allows parents to use credit cards to prepay for student lunches, set spending limits for their children and monitor their child’s school lunch purchases.

Going to an online system saves the district labor, paper and bulk mailing costs, Haley said. It also improves accuracy, she said, noting any discrepancies caught during a state review are noted in the district’s annual audit.

The free and reduced-price lunch application is now available online. Parents are urged to submit applications by Sept. 15.

If you’re not sure you qualify, the link does include an income eligibility chart.

The application does request a student identification number but parents do not need to include that at this time and can proceed with the application, Patel said.

Parents will receive a confirmation number when they’ve successfully completed the application.

The school board did vote earlier this month to raise the price of a school lunch.

An elementary school lunch will cost $2.65 and middle/high school lunches will run $2.80 when students return to school in September. However, the price of a reduced lunch remained steady at 40 cents.

For parents who do not have access to a computer or prefer not to file online, paper applications are available at each school or the food service office at 688 N. Mill Road, at the rear of Wallace Intermediate School.

Food service staff will be available 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday at the food service office at Wallace School to help anyone with the application, Haley said.

“This is a great process, it streamlines everything,” Patel said. “If you enter data incorrectly, it will notify you right away that it’s incorrect, so it won’t delay the process and the application.”

Deborah M. Marko; (856) 563-5256; dmarko@gannettnj.com DEBORAH M. MARKO, @dmarko_dj 11:16 a.m. EDT August 21, 2015

Nutrition Softwares, School Lunch Software, Software for Cafeteria

Improving Direct Certification Will Help More Low-Income Children Receive School Meals

July 25, 2014
BY

Madeleine Levin (Food Research and Action Center) and Zoë Neuberger (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

The National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) are powerful tools that alleviate child hunger and improve child well-being.  To make sure that the most vulnerable children have access to much-needed school meals and to make these programs more efficient, Congress has established automatic eligibility for free school meals for certain categories of children whose families are most likely to struggle against hunger.  Moreover, Congress has set high expectations that states will reach the vast majority — if not all — of these children with automatic eligibility through a process called “direct certification.”

Through direct certification, school districts that participate in the National School Lunch Program, as almost all do, match the names of children living in households that receive SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance (TANF), or Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) benefits with school enrollment records. This match is then used to certify students for free school meals without the need for their families to complete a school meals application.  School districts are required to directly certify students living in households receiving SNAP benefits and are encouraged to so it for children receiving TANF or FDPIR benefits.

Direct certification benefits students, parents, and school districts.  Millions of eligible low-income children receive free breakfast and lunch through direct certification.  School districts process and verify fewer school meal applications, which allows them to benefit from administrative savings and improves certification accuracy.  The administrative savings give school districts more resources to focus on improving meal quality and service.  Moreover, strong direct certification results in easier implementation of the Community Eligibility Provision, an important new option for high-poverty schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students that relies heavily on direct certification for its success.

Direct certification became an option for schools in 1986, and state child nutrition agencies and school districts across the country began developing direct certification systems.  Since then, Congress has taken numerous steps to strengthen and improve direct certification.  In 2004, it instituted a requirement that all school districts conduct direct certification for children living in households receiving SNAP benefits, and it provided funding to states to develop or improve their direct certification systems.  Congress made further improvements through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (the most recent child nutrition reauthorization), which set performance benchmarks for states, requiring them to directly certify at least 95 percent of children living in households receiving SNAP benefits by the 2013-2014 school year, and provided performance awards to states for improving direct certification and having strong direct certification systems.

States have made significant progress in improving their direct certification rates, yet they can do more to ensure that they meet the federal standard and enroll for free school meals all low-income children eligible for automatic enrollment.  According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 28 states fell short of Congress’ benchmark to directly certify at least 90 percent of students living in SNAP households for the 2012-2013 school year.[1]  Twelve states did not even reach 80 percent, missing more than one in five eligible children.

Many state agencies and school districts need to intensify their efforts to improve their direct certification systems.  One key step is for them to adopt the best practices that successful states have implemented in order to reach the benchmarks set by Congress.  By meeting those benchmarks, states and school districts will help individual low-income children and simplify program administration, as well as facilitate broader adoption of community eligibility and increase federal reimbursement to schools using that provision.

How School Districts and States Directly Certify Children for Free School Meals

Children who live in households that receive SNAP, TANF, or FDPIR benefits, as well as children who are migrant, homeless, in foster care, or enrolled in Head Start are considered “categorically eligible” for free school meals and can be certified without submitting any application.

School districts are required to directly certify — through data matching, a minimum of three times per year — children who live in households participating in SNAP.  But not all school districts have adopted effective direct certification systems, leading to uneven enrollment for free school meals, added application burdens for schools and families, and eligible children missing the free, nutritious meals they need.

States and school districts also can work with additional programs to directly certify other groups of “categorically eligible” children for free meals.  For programs with state or county-wide enrollment databases, including TANF cash assistance, FDPIR, and (often) foster care, children can be certified through data matching.  Other groups of categorically eligible children, such as migrant and homeless children, for which central databases are not common, can be certified based on a list provided to school nutrition staff by an appropriate official.

States use one of two data matching approaches to directly certify eligible children:  state-level matching, where the state child nutrition agency matches SNAP, TANF, FDPIR, and/or foster care program data with school enrollment records and distributes the results to districts; or district-level matching, where the state agency distributes program data to the district to match with its own enrollment records.  The choice of system is determined by state-specific factors, such as the size of school districts.  For example, large, county-wide districts lend themselves better to district-level matching because larger districts have the capacity and resources to conduct matching that smaller districts may lack, and because SNAP is generally administered by county agencies and would therefore align with school district boundaries.

Interaction between Direct Certification and Community Eligibility

The new Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows high-poverty schools to eliminate school meal applications and offer free breakfast and lunch to all students.  Instead of collecting individual applications to determine eligibility and federal school meal reimbursement rates, the percentage of “identified students” — those who are certified for free school meals without submitting an  application, primarily through direct certification — is multiplied by 1.6 to determine the percentage of meals that the federal government will reimburse at the (highest) “free” meal rate.  For example, a school with 50 percent identified students would receive 80 percent of its lunch and breakfast meals reimbursed at the free rate and 20 percent at the “paid” rate.  To be eligible for CEP, a school, group of schools within a district, or a school district must have at least 40 percent identified students out of their total student enrollment.  High-poverty school districts with low direct certification rates will find that their identified student percentage does not accurately reflect the level of poverty within the student population.  By improving their direct certification, these school districts may qualify for CEP or may find it more financially viable to choose CEP, making their meals programs less complicated and eliminating barriers to participation for numerous low-income, hungry children.

Direct Certification Policy and Performance Standards

Congress and USDA have made a number of policy changes aimed at strengthening the direct certification process over the past five years, including:

  • mandating electronic data matching using SNAP records;
  • requiring a minimum of three matches using SNAP records each year, with more frequent matching encouraged;
  • extending direct certification to all children who live in a household receiving SNAP, FDPIR, or TANF; and
  • requiring USDA to issue an annual report analyzing state performance and highlighting best practices.

As mentioned earlier, Congress and USDA also have established performance benchmarks and provided resources to help states reach them and reward high-performing states.  The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 established the benchmarks, which have been in place since the 2011-2012 school year, to ensure that school districts automatically enroll low-income children for free school meals.  Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, states were required to directly certify 95 percent of the school-age children in households receiving SNAP benefits.  States that do not meet the direct certification performance standards are required to develop a Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) identifying action steps, a timeline for implementing them, and measures to assess progress.  States’ performance meeting the benchmarks can be found in USDA’s annual report to Congress on direct certification.[2]

High-performing states and those that made substantial improvements in their direct certification performance have received bonus awards.  For performance during the 2011-2012 school year, Alaska, Delaware, Nebraska, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming received Outstanding Performance Awards; Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Utah received Substantial Improvement Awards.  For performance during the 2012-2013 school year, the District of Columbia, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia received Outstanding Performance Awards; Arizona, Massachusetts, Ohio, South Dakota, and Utah received Substantial Improvement Awards.

Direct Certification Performance

USDA’s annual report on direct certification performance sets out the share of school-age children in households receiving SNAP benefits who are directly certified.  The report shows that efforts to improve direct certification are making a difference.  When state performance was first measured, for the 2007-2008 school year, only 68 percent of children in households receiving SNAP benefits were directly certified nationwide.  By school year 2012-2013, that figure had grown to 89 percent of school-age children in households receiving SNAP benefits, according to the USDA data. Still, the national average is below the congressionally set performance standard of 90 percent for that year (as are just over half the states).

In the 2012-2013 school year (the most recent year of data available), the number of children directly certified based on SNAP data increased by 6 percent from the previous year, reaching about 740,000 additional students.  This increase significantly outpaced the increase in school-age SNAP participants — of about 221,000 — during the same time period.  This represents substantial progress and there is much to learn from the states and regions that have demonstrated success.

State performance in 2012-2013 varied widely, with the top ten states (Alaska, District of Columbia, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming) directly certifying all eligible children, while the bottom 12 states certified less than 80 percent.  (See Figure 1.)  The bottom 12 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington) include a significant share of the SNAP households in the country.  According to the USDA report, “[T]he wide gap between States near the bottom of the chart and those near the top makes clear that some States’ direct certification systems are simply less effective than other States’ systems.”[3]

The USDA report found that nationally 91 percent of school districts complied with the requirement to conduct direct certification, at least to some degree, but those that did not comply served only 1 percent of students participating in the National School Lunch Program.  Some states had very low school district compliance rates; in four states (Alaska, Maryland, Minnesota, and Nevada) fewer than 70 percent of districts complied with the data matching requirement.  The school districts that are not conducting direct certification are mostly very small districts, charter, or private schools and may require additional technical assistance.  This gap points to an area in which to focus future efforts to improve direct certification rates, and is included in action steps explained later in this report.

7-25-14fa-f1.png

Significantly, five of the ten highest-performing states had in one of the previous two school years implemented community eligibility, a new option for high-poverty schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students based on direct certification rates (along with the percentage of children who are homeless, migrant, in Head Start, or in foster care).  Moreover, the seven states that had community eligibility in place for the 2012-2013 school year increased their direct certification performance by 28 percent between the 2010-2011 school year and the 2012-2013 school year, compared with a 16 percent increase for all states over the same period.  These findings show the important relationship between community eligibility and strong direct certification systems.  The other states with strong direct certification systems are well positioned to maximize the number of high-poverty schools that will be able to adopt the universal meal provision now that it is available nationwide for the 2014-2015 school year.

The report demonstrates how concerted efforts by USDA and state agencies to improve direct certification data matching can pay off:  when they invest time and funds, performance improves.  Since January 2011, USDA has made $17 million in grants to 24 states to improve their direct certification systems.  These improvements have included increasing match frequency, adding additional data sources (such as foster care data), incorporating non-public schools and charter schools in the matching process, and enhancing matching procedures.  These changes are important:  half of the 14 states that had double-digit improvements in the 2012-2013 school year had received an improvement grant in the previous year.

For many states, there is still room for improvement.  More than half of the states (27) did not meet the performance benchmark that Congress set for the 2012-2013 school year to certify at least 90 percent of students living in SNAP households.  In addition, 12 states directly certified less than 80 percent of such students.  Tremendous variation exists, too, in direct certification rates in different regions of the country, with only two of 13 states in USDA’s West and Southwest regions meeting the 90 percent benchmark.

Call to Action: Steps to Improve Direct Certification

Every state can meet the national performance benchmarks.  Multiple models of successful direct certification systems exist, and federal funds are still available to help states improve systems.  The strategies outlined below can help states and school districts improve direct certification rates and meet Congress’ performance standards.

Raise the visibility of the issue.  In states with low direct certification rates, advocates can elevate the issue and engage the media, state elected officials, the state agency, education advocates and associations, health groups, businesses, and state school nutrition associations.

Refine the data matching process.  Direct certification can be enhanced by regularly reassessing whether the data elements and process used for data matching are successfully identifying children eligible for direct certification.  States have implemented several approaches that increase the share of children eligible for direct certification who are matched.  For example, some states use software that allows for variations in names and spelling when conducting matches.  Some states conduct multiple data matches using different data elements in each match.  Probabilistic matching, which compares multiple data fields from two sources and determines a statistical probability of a match, offers another promising approach.  States and districts may need to try various alternatives and reassess their matching criteria over time to find the right set of identifiers so that direct certification is neither over- nor under-inclusive.

Use any available data to reach all children in the household.  If one person in the household is identified as participating in SNAP, then the school district must, to the extent possible, directly certify for free school meals all children in the household even if each child has not been individually matched.[4]  States or school districts can take steps to identify additional children in the household.  For example, once the student database has been matched against the SNAP database to identify individually matched children, the student database can be searched to identify additional children in the households of individually matched children.[5]  States can improve the identification of additional children in the household by ensuring that records are available to link students by household.  In lieu of additional matching, the school district may rely on other available data, such as information from school enrollment forms or “point-of-sale” software.[6]

Conduct matches as often as possible and develop the capacity to look up individual children.  States or districts are required to conduct matches with SNAP data at least three times each school year to identify children who are eligible for free school meals.[7]  Conducting matches more frequently or developing the capacity to look up whether an individual child can be directly certified helps prevent schools from missing children who become eligible for SNAP after the start of a school year, or who change school districts during the year.  In each month of 2013, an average of more than 500,000 children were in families that newly enrolled for SNAP benefits.[8]  Total SNAP participation is likely to decline over the next few years, but substantial numbers of new children will still enroll each month.[9]  Frequent direct certification matching helps ensure that these children begin receiving free school meals promptly if they were not already certified and increases the school’s Identified Student Percentage under the Community Eligibility Provision.

Regularly provide training and support for local staff.  Additional training efforts represent a promising opportunity for improving direct certification.  In most districts, handling direct certification is only a small part of a local school administrator’s job.  Even the best data matching system will not be effective if staff do not know how to use it.  Some steps that have proven successful include adopting a simplified interface for the matching system, ensuring that the process for uploading enrollment data is flexible and can work with all local databases, creating a strong instruction manual, and providing training and technical assistance to staff on an ongoing basis.[10]  It is important to include charter and private schools in training because they may be less familiar with state data systems.

Adapt systems to facilitate charter and private school participation in direct certification data matching.  Direct certification is challenging for private and charter schools because of their limited administrative capacity and lack of defined enrollment areas.  Sometimes charter schools are established as part of a Local Educational Agency (LEA) and other times they are their own separate LEA, responsible for all administrative systems.  The most recent USDA direct certification report provides examples of strategies that states have implemented to include this hard-to-reach group in their direct certification systems, including pairing private schools with nearby public schools, using individual look-up systems for these schools, providing training specifically for private and charter school staff, and building capacity for private schools to upload their student lists into statewide data matching systems.[11]

Strengthen systems for directly certifying vulnerable children who are not in households receiving SNAP benefits.  Although federal law requires school districts to establish data matching systems only for children in households receiving SNAP benefits, districts have the opportunity to directly certify other children, including those receiving TANF or FDPIR benefits.  USDA reports that schools certify through an application process nearly 1.7 million of the categorically eligible children, which needlessly burdens families with paperwork, creates unnecessary work for school districts, and introduces greater potential for error.[12]  Additional (uncounted) children who could be directly certified never get through the application process, missing out on the school meals programs.  Children facing unique hardships — those in foster care or Head Start as well as children who are homeless, migrant, or runaway — can be directly certified if an appropriate official documents their status.  Such children can be identified through a data matching process or based on a list signed by a caseworker, homeless liaison, or other appropriate official.

Continuously assess progress.  USDA’s performance report is a critical starting point for assessing state progress, but it is not the final word.  States with successful direct certification systems regularly self-assess the strength of their systems and identify opportunities for improvement.

Michigan’s Direct Certification System:  A Success Story

Michigan was one of the states to adopt community eligibility in the 2011-2012 school year, the first year the option was offered.  By that time, the state already had been improving its direct certification process.  Four state agencies came together to implement a centralized state matching system in 2006 — the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information, the Department of Education, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Technology Management and Budget.  That same year, the state received a USDA grant to expand its direct certification system to include non-public schools and smaller LEAs, as well as to conduct regional trainings on how to use the system.  After implementing community eligibility, they embarked on further improvements, like increasing the frequency of matches, which are now conducted biweekly in August and September and monthly for the remainder of the school year, and adopting probabilistic matching.  For school year 2012-2013, Michigan incorporated TANF and foster care data for the first time and added the capacity for districts to look up individual children to determine if they can be matched.  These efforts have resulted in striking performance improvements, culminating in a $300,000 Outstanding Improvement Award from USDA in 2013.  For the 2010-2011 school year, Michigan directly certified 72 percent of children in households receiving SNAP benefits who were eligible for direct certification.  In 2011-2012, the share rose to 83 percent.  By the 2012-2013 school year, Michigan directly certified 100 percent of such children.

Resources to Support Direct Certification Improvements

In conjunction with strengthening performance standards and requiring states that do not meet the performance benchmarks to implement improvement plans, Congress and USDA provide states with substantial support to improve direct certification data matching.

Funding

In October 2009, Congress provided $22 million in federal funds for USDA to distribute in grants to state child nutrition agencies to improve their direct certification processes.[13]  USDA has distributed approximately $17 million to 24 state agencies.[14]  Some of the remaining funding will be distributed to states that applied for funds before the July 4, 2014 deadline, and there likely will be another round of grants.[15]  Grant funds may be used to implement new or revised direct certification systems, make technology improvements, or provide technical assistance to LEAs.  These funds also may be used to implement direct certification using Medicaid data in states that are approved to participate in USDA’s Medicaid direct certification demonstration projects (California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania).  USDA works closely with state agencies during the course of their grant period.
States have undertaken the following types of activities with grant funds:[16]

  • conducting direct certification matching more frequently;
  • adding software that checks names for transposed letters, common spelling variations, or names that sound alike;
  • incorporating unique student identification numbers into the matching process to facilitate future matches;
  • centralizing direct certification systems for greater efficiency;
  • adding features for probabilistic matching;
  • simplifying processes and creating tools for accessing match information online and downloading it directly to point of sale systems in local school districts;
  • developing the capacity to directly certify children who are not initially matched, including mechanisms to look up individual students and matches to identify additional children in the household;
  • providing training and support for LEAs, including private and charter schools, to improve the data they enter in student databases and ensure they are able to use the direct certification matching system; and
  • facilitating direct certification when students transfer from one LEA to another.

Technical Assistance

Through a contract with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, USDA provides detailed, state-specific technical assistance to states that need help identifying ways to improve their performance.  The assistance can focus on improving the data matching algorithm, the most cost-effective hardware and software improvements, or how to support LEAs in successfully using the direct certification system.

Technical assistance has already been provided to 35 states, and planning is underway to provide assistance to additional states in the coming year.  States wishing to request technical assistance may do so by contacting the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Regional Office for their area.

Newsletters

USDA publishes a quarterly newsletter to state agencies, called Match to Meal, to highlight successful and promising practices in direct certification.  Stories and tips are collected from state technical assistance site visits and shared with all states.

Continuous Improvement Plan Guide

As noted above, states that do not meet the direct certification performance standards are required to develop a Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP).  A CIP must include the specific steps the state plans to take to improve direct certification results, a timeline for implementing them, and performance measures that will be used to assess progress.  To assist states in developing their CIPs, USDA has issued a comprehensive guide that includes a self-assessment tool.[17]  The guide takes state child nutrition staff though the steps needed to identify the goals, objectives, and performance measures for a CIP.  It also includes a prototype CIP and implementation timeline example.  The self-assessment tool is intended to help any state identify areas where they could improve, even if they are not required to develop a formal CIP.  USDA encourages its use as a tool for all states and welcomes feedback on ways to make it more useful.

Presentations and Video Resources

USDA maintains a directory of guidance materials, slide presentations, and recorded webinars on direct certification topics in its Child Nutrition Programs PartnerWeb, an online community for sharing information with child nutrition state agencies.  State agency staff who do not have access or need assistance locating materials in this shared community may request help by contacting the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Regional Office for their area.

Conclusion

Direct certification ensures that vulnerable children at risk of hunger can count on getting free breakfasts and lunches at school, and, as direct certification systems improve, millions of low-income students across the country will benefit from improved access to school meals.  At the same time, school districts will benefit even more from the simplified program administration and improved program integrity.

With the start of a new school year, now is the time to re-double efforts to improve direct certification systems.  School districts are conducting their first required direct certification, and high-poverty schools across the country are preparing to offer free meals to all students through the Community Eligibility Provision.  Strengthened and improved systems provide a key to access to free school meals to low-income students across the country.

End notes:

[1] “Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress, School Year 2012-2013,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, November 2013, p. 13, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPDirectCertification2013.pdf.

[2] “Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress, School Year 2012-2013,” p. 12, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPDirectCertification2013.pdf.

[3] “Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress, School Year 2012-2013,” p. 13, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPDirectCertification2013.pdf.

[4] See 7 C.F.R. § 245.6(b)(7) and Food and Nutrition Service Memorandum, “Extending Categorical Eligibility to Additional Children in a Household,” USDA, August 27, 2009, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SP_38-2009_os.pdf.

[5] Some student databases have a specific household, or head of household, indicator.  For student databases that do not have such an indicator, the child’s address could be used to identify additional children in the household if the address is unique to a single household (for example, an apartment building would need to include unit numbers).  See Food and Nutrition Service Memorandum, “Questions and Answers on Extending Categorical Eligibility to Additional Children in a Household,” USDA, May 3, 2010, question 13, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SP_25_CACFP_11_SFSP_10-2010_os.pdf

[6] See Food and Nutrition Service Memorandum, “Questions and Answers on Extending Categorical Eligibility to Additional Children in a Household,” USDA, May 3, 2010, question 10, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SP_25_CACFP_11_SFSP_10-2010_os.pdf.

[7] See 7 C.F.R. § 245.6(b)(3).

[8] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimate based on SNAP administrative data, research on SNAP entry rates, and 2012 Household Characteristics data from USDA.  Even though an average of more than 500,000 children were in families that newly enrolled for SNAP benefits, SNAP caseloads did not increase by that amount because families also left SNAP.

[9] Dottie Rosenbaum and Brynne Keith-Jennings, “SNAP Costs Falling, Expected to Fall Further,”
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, updated May 28, 2014, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=4054.

[10] “Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress, School Year 2010-2011,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, October 2011, Section V, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/DirectCert2011.pdf.

[11] “Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress, School Year 2012-2013,” pp. 30-31, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPDirectCertification2013.pdf,.

[12] “Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program: State Implementation Progress, School Year 2012-2013,” Table 3, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPDirectCertification2013.pdf.

[13] Section 749(h) of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-80).

[14] Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

[15] “National School Lunch Program Fiscal Year 2013-2014 Request for Applications for Direct Certification Improvement Grants,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2013directcert_rfa_2.pdf.

[16] For more detailed descriptions of state activities funded by Direct Certification Improvement Grants, see http://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/2013-direct-certification-improvement-grants and http://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/fy-2010-2012-direct-certification-grant-summaries.

[17] USDA’s CIP Guide is available at http://frac.org/fns_cip_development_guide.docx.

Topics:
Food Assistance, Child Nutrition and WIC
Software for School Cafeteria

New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture asks organizations to help with summer meals

The New Jersey Department of Agriculture is encouraging agencies to sponsor meals for the department’s summer nutrition program. In a February 15 statement, New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher requested organizations’ assistance in the Department’s Summer Food Service Program, which provides nutritious meals to children in low-income areas during the summer.

The program was begun in 1976 as an outgrowth of the National School Lunch Program. The Summer Food Service Program seeks to reach students who are 18 or younger in economically disadvantaged areas.  In addition, it is open to people over 18 who have mental or physical handicaps and who participate in public or non-profit private programs for the disabled.

As the New Jersey Department of Agriculture explains:

“The federally-funded program reimburses participating organizations for meals served to children who live in areas in which at least 50 percent of the children qualify for free or reduced-price meals under the National School Lunch Program.”

A variety of organizations can apply to the program. Applicants include public or private non-profit school food authorities, local or state governments as well as residential summer camps or national youth sports programs.

Over 422,408 children in New Jersey receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year under the National School Lunch Program.  However, in 2014, only 20 percent of New Jersey students participating in the National School Lunch Program had access to nutritious meals over the summer.

In 2014, 100 organizations took part in the Summer Food Service Program to ensure that children had access to good food during the summer.

As schools seek to feed an increasing number of students nutritious meals, it is crucial that they have the best solutions to assist them. Food Service Solutions and our Point-of-Sale cafeteria software can help your school.

Contact us at 1(800) 425-1425, or send us an email at sales@foodserve.com, to learn more.

Cafeteria Software, Nutrition Softwares, Software for School Cafeteria

New Jersey School Breakfast and Lunch Program

Program Description

The School Breakfast Program (SBP) provides cash assistance to states to operate nonprofit breakfast programs in schools and residential childcare institutions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition service administers the SBP at the Federal level. State education agencies administer the SBP at the state level, and local school food authorities operate the program in schools.

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day.

General Program Requirements

For this benefit program, you must be a resident of the state of New Jersey.

Income eligibility guidelines are used to determine eligibility for free and reduced priced meals or free milk.

If you are earning at or below current Income Eligibility Guidelines, we encourage you to contact your school to fill out a school meal application. The school or local education agency will process your application and issue an eligibility determination.

If you are receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, your child automatically qualifies for free school meals. If you are eligible for unemployment compensation, you might also be eligible for free or reduced price school meals.

Because many programs offer services to families that may qualify them under other local criteria, we strongly recommend you contact the program in your community for more information and guidance.

Your Next Steps

The following information will lead you to the next steps to apply for this program.

Application Process

Schools send school meal applications home at the beginning of each school year. However, you may apply for school meals at any time throughout the school year by submitting a household application directly to your school. Your school will provide you with an application upon request.

Contact your state’s agency to participate.

Program Contact Information

For additional information, please visit the New Jersey School Nutrition Programs page.
Or visit the following websites:
USDA’s National School Breakfast Program
USDA’s School Lunch Program

 

Food Service Software, School Lunch Software

School Lunch Software and Much More!

School Lunch software for lunch accounts & fee payment. A simple and secure tool for schools to connect, transact and manage their school payment needs. The Best Online School Fee Payment Software and School Food Program Consulting Services for Schools and Food Service Industry.

Our software can save many hours of data collection and compilation, maximize your meal reimbursement dollars, minimize the time spent of managing student account information and much more. If you are a private school or charter school operating your own lunch program, sign up for the free version of the School Lunch software.

Wordware’s School Lunch software  provides an easy to use yet powerful system for the placing and management of school hot lunch programs,  you can purchase a School Lunch software for parent payments, parent preordering, and run Free/Reduced Lunch reports.  National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. School boards must apply to their state child nutrition agency in order to institute a program.  The School Lunch software website allows schools and school districts of all sizes to safely and securely accept online payments from parents for school fees. We offer online ordering software for school lunch programs. Our online lunch order system enables parents order lunch online for their children at school on time! You need not to worry for your school lunch software, wordware provides on of the best software for School Lunch.

School payment software for lunch accounts & fee payment. A simple and secure tool for schools to connect, transact and manage their school payment needs. The Best Online School Fee Payment Software and School Food Program Consulting Services for Schools and Food Service Industry

Cafeteria Software, Food Service Software, Nutrition Softwares

Wordware’s Cafeteria Accounting Software will Increase Your Revenue & Reduce Operating Cost

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Every business requires utmost management skills Cafeteria sector also. From managing the reservations, to allotting tables to customers, manage wait list , to keeping eye on timely delivery of orders, each aspect needs to be managed up to perfection. There will be major customer dissatisfaction in any kind of delay or not proper service. A simple way to avoid such errors is to use a Cafeteria Accounting Software.

There are so many service provider in the field of food industry who provides Cafeteria Accounting Software. We have partner with various top industry leaders like FEE ZEE,  Affinety Solutions, EduTrak Software, rSchool Today, Efunds, and Convenient Payments.

These softwares have been in the market for quite long time. Cafeteria owners hesitated in adopting new technologies; however, with time they could understand that such software can increase efficiency and the output on efforts few years ago. Billing, food reservations, order handling and delivery to the food, all these are now handled by the software systems.

However, good Cafeteria Accounting Software like Lunch Cashier System, go much beyond the operation management functionalities and provide in-depth data & reports for the top management. Below are 7 features that can help you increase your organization’s profitability and become the catalyst for its growth.

  1. Web Based Solutions- All of our solutions are web based or have a web based option. This makes the LCS line of products usable on virtually any HTML5 capable device. You do not need to worry about troublesome installations or user access problems. LCS runs on MAC, Windows, Linux, Android and old and new equipment. Depending on your deployments selections, you may be able to run the system from home.
  1. Forecasting with Quick and Easy setup. No program installations required! – As Cafeteria sales depend on many external factors like weekends, school exams, weather conditions and even sporting events, it becomes increasing important to forecast the sales. Automated forecasts produced every week/month along with charts in the software would show your progress, real time history, sales progress and multiple department forecasts.
  1. a)       The LCS 1000 can be setup after breakfast and it will be ready to serve before lunch! That’s the efficiency that this new appliance has to offer to your institution.
  1. b)       We have removed the need to install or transfer data from one office computer to another. No more time spent transferring programs from an old computer to a new one. No time consuming installations. No more problems with compatibility from one version of a Windows to another.
  1. c)       This box plugs into your network and is set up like any other server, then it is ready to go. No further involvement from a school technician is required. Wordware’s friendly technical support staff will take over answering all questions and concerns, plus addressing the initial importing of the schools current information into the new system. You will lose absolutely no data and the process takes only minutes.
  1. d)       No servers set up in your school? That’s just fine! The LCS 1000 works in a normal server environment, or can just be staged in the cafeteria alone, connected to one computer that wants to do it all, or as many computers as you need to get it all done. The perfect answer for any school, large or small.
  1. Automated Backups – “Valuable” doesn’t even begin to describe your lunch accounting information, and losing any of it is not an option. With this in mind, we are including the peace of mind that only automatic backups can bring and then taking it a step further. Not only will the LCS 1000 back up it’s information every day, but it will also upload it to the Wordware Inc cloud servers as an extra level of protection. Your data will be safely stored in multiple locations, ensuring that you always have the ability to recover from any change in a matter of moments, so you always have a backup plan. Bottleneck of any Cafeteria is its seating capacity. Efficient management of tables thus becomes a necessity. A Cloud Based Cafeteria Management Software can aid in carrying out this activity and also manage advance reservations.
  1. Data Bridge – Our unique data bridge was developed to easily pull your student and family information from your SIS into Wordware so both systems contain the same information. No dual entry or manual effort is needed.
  1. Reporting– After rentals and labour, food costs are typically the largest expense for any Cafeterias. The food cost reporting of the Cafeteria management software can show you the actual vs predicted cost and the accompanying difference. This is done by researching on the cost variation in the same item offered by different stores along with a list of top and bottom pricing. These features become increasingly important in multi branch organizations. Reporting and Charts. We understand that food service reporting is critical to the administration and success of your schools. Not only does Wordware provide and extensive offering of reports in the software for cash sales reporting, free and reduced, line reports, etc. Wordware will work with you to make sure you are getting the information you need from your software.
  1. Product planning to decrease and nullify food waste – Wasted food is another critical cost center for a Cafeteria. The product planning report will give you a real-time measure of the amount of food that is wasted thereby contributes to lowering the waste generated.
  1. Labour Cost reports – The labour cost report is another critical aid you will get from the Cafeteria management software. It has the detailed information on your staffing and even goes up to the hourly, daily and monthly man hour utilization. With this report, your staff scheduling can be improved.

These are only a few ways in which a Cafeteria management software can aid you. The benefits of using one such software are multiple. If you aren’t using these functionalities of your Cafeteria management software, you immediately need work with your team, and study these reports and if you current software doesn’t provide such in depth reports, you many need to upgrade your software. Wordware’s Lunch cashier software has been implemented in . school cafeterias, college and universities, hospital settings and commercial building cafeterias in all over USA.

You can also talk to one of our Cafeteriamanagement software analyst for any assistance you will require Call: (800) 934-2621.