Note: This post was updated in January, 2017, by Just Harvest staff.
Schools find that school breakfast and lunch are effective tools to improve and sustain students’ performance. Nutritious meals every day are linked to greater academic performance, more positive behavior, higher attendance rates, and higher order cognitive development.
With this in mind, a new tool various school districts are taking advantage of – nationwide and locally – is Community Eligibility Provision (CEP).
CEP is an alternative approach to providing healthful school breakfast and lunch to all students without requiring individual applications and no costs to families. This breaks down the paperwork barriers for schools, helps financially struggling families at home, and eliminates the stigma for students receiving free meals.
Here’s how it works. Schools determine the percentage of students coming from families receiving assistance from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), medical assistance, and Temporary Assistance Program for Needy Families (TANF). This percentage is the Direct Certification number found for each school and school district.
A single school or whole school district with at least 40% of directly certified students may offer meals to 100% of students at no cost to families. The schools receive a monthly federal reimbursement for all meals served.
In many cases, the reimbursement saves schools thousands and frees funds to increase food quality and other needed educational resources, such as, more teachers, counseling services, technology, or building improvements.
Currently, there are 12 school districts (including Pittsburgh Public Schools), six charter networks, three elementary schools, and one preK in Allegheny County making free school meals available to all of their students through CEP. There are still more districts and schools who qualify for CEP but aren’t enrolled. (All participating and eligible schools and districts are listed in the sidebar.)
We encourage parents and community stakeholders to join us in the conversation about how to bring universal meals to schools that are eligible but not enrolled in CEP. Let’s keep our students fueled for school in Allegheny County!
Contact our grassroots organizer, Helen Gerhardt, with any questions or if you’d like to get more involved with this campaign: [email protected] | (412) 431-8960 x105.
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