Tennessee DOE explains rules, applications for rural noncongregate summer meals

NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Department of Education on a statewide training described operational and reporting rules for the Seamless Summer Option (SSO) rural noncongregate feeding model and said sponsors must complete a new supplemental application before their TMAC site applications can be approved.

Rhonda Mead, senior data and compliance manager for the department’s School Nutrition Program, led the training and said the supplemental online form is required so the state can collect data the TMAC application does not capture for monthly reporting to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “We have reporting requirements that are due to USDA that are not captured within your TMAC site application,” Mead said.

The guidance matters because it affects how school food authorities (SFAs) can distribute meals to children under 18 during summer months and how they will be reimbursed. Rural noncongregate operations change where and how meals can be distributed, what records sponsors must keep and how claims must be filed.

Mead reviewed the major requirements attendees need to meet to operate rural noncongregate SSO sites. A site must be both area eligible (poverty indicators such as school-level free/reduced-price meal percentages or qualifying census block data) and classified as rural under USDA mapping. For school-attendance-area eligibility, a site may qualify if it is in the attendance area of a school where at least 50% of enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals; Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) sites must use the individual site’s identified student percentage…