Determining Site Eligibility
The purpose of this presentation is to explain common methods for determining sight eligibility. You may want to use these resources as you are selecting a site location or as you determine whether your sight qualifies for the program. Determining whether a site is area eligible is the first step to participating in the summer food service program, let's get started.
The two primary sources of data that may be used to determine whether the area that will be served as eligible are school data or Census data, including Census averaging. Though most sites will qualify under one of the first two options. In some instances, these two options will not qualify a site. In these cases, other types of data may be used so it is important to consult with your state agency about the possibility of using other types of data.
Let's discuss school data first. You may want to use school data if your site is located in a school attendance area of an elementary, middle, or high school.
How do you know if your site is located in a school attendance area? To find this information contact the school district or districts nearest to your site location. The local school district will be able to provide you with school boundary information. In fact, many school districts have mapping tools available on their website which allows specific site addresses to be entered.
Now that you know which school boundary your site is located in, you are ready to access the October survey. The October survey contains free and reduced-price percentages for schools during the previous year. This will tell you if a school qualifies for the program. Let's use an example as we go through this process. Our examples site falls within the enrollment of Geneva Elementary in Alpine School District and we want to know what the free and reduced-price percentage for that school was on the last October survey. First, we will go to the Utah State Office of Education Child Nutrition homepage.
The Child Nutrition homepage looks like this. On the left-hand side you will see a menu of options. Select free and reduced-price survey, near the bottom of this menu. On the page that appears next, click on the link that says “Current and previous year’s October surveys” located in the center of the page. Now select the year you wish to view. For new or potential sites the most recent free and reduced survey must be used. When you click on the link an Excel spreadsheet will be downloaded.
In the Excel spreadsheet, the school will be listed under site name and the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals is under the free and reduced percent column. Using our example, Alpine School District was the first district listed so we were quickly able to find a Geneva Elementary under the site name column. Now under free and reduced percent, we can see that 79.51% of the students attending Geneva Elementary qualified to receive free or reduced-price meals. Therefore, our site qualifies to participate because it falls within Geneva Elementary School's boundaries and Geneva Elementary has 50% or more students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.
Let's take a look at what happens when we have overlapping school boundaries. In this example we have two sites, site location X and site location Y. Site location X is located within the boundaries of Lincoln Junior High, which has a free and reduced-price percentage of 60%. Because the school qualifies and the site falls within the school's boundaries, site's location X qualifies to participate. What about site location Y? This site does not lie within the boundaries of Lincoln Junior High, but it does lie within the boundaries for Washington Elementary. Now Washington Elementary has a free and reduced-price percentage less than 50%, which means the school does not qualify. And although the boundaries of the two schools overlap the percentages of the schools cannot be averaged and district-wide percentages may not be used. Therefore, site Y does not qualify using school data because Washington Elementary does not meet the 50% free and reduced-price criteria.
What if your school doesn't qualify according to the October survey but you believe that the school would qualify using more recent data? Well, an alternate option is to submit a more recent months data. Any months following the most recent October survey may be submitted to the state agency as proof that 50% or more of the children attending the school during that month qualified for free or reduced-price meals. Data from the last operating day of the selected month must be submitted to the state agency; including the total number of children enrolled, the number of children who qualified for free lunch, and the number of children who qualified for reduced price lunch.
Using Census data is another option for qualifying a site. You may use Census data as an alternate option to school data. However, if the school district does not have defined school attendance areas, the use of school data is not permitted for non-school sites. In this case, Census Data must be used to determine area eligibility.
There are several tools available to access Census data. One such tool is the “No Kid Hungry Averaged Eligibility Map.” To access this tool, first visit the No Kid Hungry home page at the URL listed here. From the homepage, you will want to select “Sponsor Center” in the upper right corner and then select the No Kid Hungry Average Eligibility map from the menu on the left. If you access this site using the URL on the previous slide, you should already be on the eligibility map page. On this page, you will see a key for the map. To find the map scroll down. This is what the map will look like. Enter the address of your site in the box located in the upper right-hand corner of the map.
As an example, we entered the state office location. As you can see the site is located in an orange section. Using the plus and minus buttons, in the upper left corner of the map, we are able to zoom in and out. Once zoomed out, we can also be areas that are highlighted in orange blue and gray. Remember the key located above the map? If your site is located in an orange or blue area, the site is eligible. If the site is located in a gray area, then it is not eligible using Census data. Let's use our example. The state office is located in an orange area, so our site is eligible to participate in the program. What if our sites were located in a blue area? Blue areas use the average data of two surrounding regions to be determined eligible. So, in a blue region our site is considered eligible. Now, what if our site is located in a gray area? This site is not eligible because it is not located in an eligible area or in an area where averaging regions qualifies. If your site is located in a gray area you do not qualify for the program using Census data.
If you are unable to qualify your site using school or Census data, you may be able to qualify using other types of data. If your site serves meals to low-income children but does not qualify using school or Census data, please contact the state agency Child Nutrition specialist about the possibility of using other types of data to determine area eligibility.
Let's do a quick review. After contacting your local school district, to determine which school boundaries your site is located within, several methods may be used to determine if your site is eligible to participate. The two most common methods use school data or Census data. To determine eligibility using school data, access the October survey or provide data for the last operating day of a more recent month. To determine eligibility using Census or Census averaging data, access the No Kid Hungry Averaged Eligibility Map. If your site does not qualify using school or Census data, contact your state agency. The state agency has access to additional resources that will help you to determine if your site is eligible.
For additional information, about the summer food service program, please contact your state agency or complete our Summer Food Service Program modules.
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