Child Nutrition: summer EBT reporting served 200,000+ students; S‑5 records to be primary collector for 2026

A Child Nutrition Program (CNP) representative reported to the LEA data meeting that the first year of Summer EBT operations provided benefits to more than 200,000 students and resulted in over $24,000,000 in benefits for families.

CNP staff said S‑5 records (a YouTrEx/UTrEx data element) will be the primary source for Summer EBT (Sun Bucks) eligibility reporting in program year 2026, with Qualtrics as a secondary collector when necessary. The department asked LEAs to ensure S‑5 eligibility dates fall within the current school year (acceptable range cited: 07/01/2025 through 06/30/2026) and requested that the S‑5 record be present for any student marked "F" or "R" in the economically disadvantaged field.

CNP staff said they will add a new valid value for the free/reduced eligibility source field titled "override" to be used only in rare circumstances when a school authority fills out an application for a student. They also noted that some students reported as free/reduced on the economically disadvantaged field lacked S‑5 records and conversely some S‑5 records appeared for students not marked as free/reduced; CNP asked LEAs to align those fields.

CNP said it will run internal checks and provide files to LEAs to verify S‑5 record matches, and that they expect to be able to pull S‑5 records reliably by April for the next round of issuances. The department acknowledged that some LEAs (e.g., private schools, preschool) may still need to submit spreadsheets or Qualtrics records in specific cases, because S‑5 cannot be made mandatory without jeopardizing other state reporting flows.

LEAs were asked to provide feedback on what worked, what didn’t, and suggestions for improving S‑5 reporting in 2026; CNP provided contact email addresses and said slides and contact information will be shared after the meeting.