Tennessee DOE adds associated-user confirmation and civil rights questions to TMAC application

Good afternoon. I am Rhonda Mead. I am the senior compliance and data manager with the School Nutrition Program. Today, I'm going over school year 2526, TMAC application update.

The Tennessee Department of Education’s School Nutrition Program on a virtual training laid out two primary changes to the Tennessee Meal Access and Claiming (TMAC) application packet for school year 2025–26: a new associated-user confirmation tool to manage who has access to an SFA’s TMAC account, and a set of expanded civil rights questions that SFAs must answer when they submit their application packet.

The associated-user confirmation is designed to reduce manual work currently performed by TDOE staff. Under the new feature, anyone with SFA-level access to TMAC will appear in an "active associations" list where authorized users can mark accounts for removal, re-add users removed in error prior to certification, and then certify and save. Rhonda Mead demonstrated that the status appears as "pending validation" until the form is saved and certified, and that after certification the interface will show who removed an association and when for audit purposes. She explained that the system displays a confirmation pop-up reading, "Are you sure you want to remove the selected association? Changes cannot be undone," and advised users they can continue editing until they click the certify-and-save sequence.

Rhonda Mead and staff emphasized that the TDOE is still awaiting final coding updates from the vendor (identified in the session as Link) before the changes go live; a firm application-open date was not provided. "We have not set a definitive date of when it will be open," Mead said. Training materials and a recording will be posted on Teach All and included in a follow-up email once available.

The training also described new SFA-level civil rights questions that the agency will add to the application packet. The first is a yes/no question asking whether the school food authority received written or verbal complaints alleging discrimination (race, color, national origin, which the presenter said includes gender identity and sexual orientation, age, disability, or retaliation) during the current or prior school year. If an SFA answers yes, the system will request the date, nature of the complaint, the local entity or program named, and the agency to which the complaint was reported. Mead said the change is being made to comply with USDA requirements: "USDA said that this is a requirement."

Additional required items include a question on whether SFAs obtain written civil rights assurances from subrecipients, retailers and vendors (for example, inclusion of civil rights assurance language in procurements and contracts) and several check-all-that-apply lists. These lists ask which language-assistance services the LEA/SFA provides (options include qualified bilingual staff, in-house interpreters/translators, contracted telephonic or video-remote interpretation, volunteer interpreters, and children or family members as interpreters) and in which additional oral and written languages assistance is available. Another set asks about procedural safeguards for participants with disabilities seeking reasonable meal modifications and which auxiliary aids or services are used when communicating with individuals with communication disabilities (options include in-person interpreters, video-remote interpreting, large-print materials, screen readers, assistive listening systems, braille, captioning and audio recordings).

Mead said answers provided on the application will be used during administrative reviews to check that SFAs are providing the services they report. "You're saying we do X, Y, Z. Then when we're on a review, we'll say, 'You said that you had this material in Spanish. Can you just show us an example of this in Spanish?'" she said.

Staff took several procedural questions during the session, including whether SFAs with no non-English languages on campus still must complete the civil rights fields and whether a state-agency staff person who discovers a civil rights issue on a site visit should mark that as a complaint; TDOE staff said they would follow up with additional guidance. Lexi (TDOE staff) closed the session with two scheduling notes: the noncongregate virtual training was moved from April 1 to April 22, and the statewide quarterly update call is scheduled for April 10; registration and follow-up materials will be included in the post-training email.

Materials including the slide deck and the recorded training will be posted on Teach All and shared by follow-up email once final vendor updates are implemented and the application is released.