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Nutrition director outlines Community Eligibility options; district to group schools to maximize reimbursements
Summary
The district reviewed the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) and recommended grouping schools to maximize federal reimbursements rather than enrolling schools individually; changes take effect based on April 1 identified student data and must be reported to DPI by June 30.
Cabarrus County Schools’ nutrition director presented the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) options to the Board of Education on May 5 and recommended grouping schools as a single unit to maximize federal reimbursements for free breakfast and lunch.
Stephanie Allman explained CEP is an optional U.S. Department of Agriculture provision that uses directly certified and categorically eligible student counts (the identified student percentage, ISP) as of April 1 of the prior year. Districts or schools with an ISP of at least 40% may participate; under CEP the ISP multiplied by a federal multiplier (1.6) determines the share of meals reimbursed at the highest federal rate. Allman told the board an ISP of roughly 62.5% means every meal served in a grouped unit is reimbursed at the highest rate. She said the district’s school ISPs varied but grouping the schools produced a combined ISP above the threshold that yielded higher reimbursement (the example the presenter used produced a 60.17% ISP for the grouped set and 96.27% of meals reimbursed at the free rate in that scenario).
Allman also warned that proposed federal budget language has recommended increasing the minimum ISP from 40% to 60%; she said she was monitoring that proposal and would report if it moved forward. Board members asked whether direct‑certification versus application‑based free/reduced breakdowns were available; Allman offered to provide the direct‑certification percentage to the board after the meeting. She also explained that direct certification comes from state data imports from the Department of Health and Human Services and that families who receive SNAP/TANF (or certain Medicaid classifications) can be directly certified without filling a school‑level free/reduced application.
Allman outlined the timing and operational steps: April 1 is the data cutoff, districts have until June 30 to submit CEP selections to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and a CEP data year runs for four years with required reestablishment after redistricting or other material changes affecting school attendance areas.
The board did not take a formal vote during the presentation; the district indicated it would move forward with the grouping approach to preserve reimbursement levels and will submit selections to DPI by the June 30 deadline.
