State |
Grant Type |
Award Date |
Amount |
| Massachusetts | ART II 2014 | September 2014 | $1,495,840 |
| Guam | ART II 2014 | September 2014 | $1,500,000 |
| North Dakota | ART II 2014 | September 2014 | $ 389,973 |
| Pennsylvania | ART II 2014 | September 2014 | $ 464,801 |
Massachusetts
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education applied for an ART Method II implementation grant in 2014 to enhance the Massachusetts School Meal Accountability and Responsibility Training Tools (SMARTTs). The objective is to make all Massachusetts school nutrition personnel qualified within their positions through interactive trainings and delivery of user support to further reduce administrative errors and improve the nutritional quality of school meals statewide. SMARTTs will adapt the Agency’s Making It Count training into a toolkit for use by school nutrition directors and managers as a group teaching resource to assist districts in ensuring development of competent staff and compliance with the proposed professional standards. Regional “Train the Trainer” sessions are proposed to cultivate the skills necessary for school nutrition directors and managers to effectively and efficiently train their staff with the developed toolkit. Additional components include the standardization of point of sale system requirements and technology improvements to allow districts the ability to run claim analysis reports to highlight claim anomalies and trends prior to submission. In addition, state agency reports reflecting results from the new Administrative Review will be created.
Guam
Department of Education
The Guam Department of Education has applied for an ART II implementation grant to make improvements to their child nutrition program operations. Guam has proposed moving from manual processes to a technology driven system. Their proposed solution will provide the state agency the capability to assess and monitor SFAs’ compliance with program requirements using a data driven approach that will address certification, verification, meal counting and claiming, and allow them to establish performance benchmarks in key areas such as financial management and meal planning. The proposed solution also will support and enhance the state agency’s ability to identify, review, oversee and train high risk SFAs in application processing and certification, verification, meal counting, and meal claiming, allowing the state agency to conduct trend analysis and make comparisons among districts.
North Dakota
Department of Public Instruction
The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction has applied for an ART II grant to purchase an automated eligibility processing system that will reduce eligibility determination errors, create efficiencies for school food authorities (SFAs) and the state agency, and allow oversight of and access to SFA determinations for completion of Administrative Reviews. The state agency will also reduce the risk of administrative errors and increase program integrity by implementing a comprehensive administrative review system. The administrative review system will integrate and automate all review processes to ensure administrative reviews are completed accurately and completely and that all required forms and data are collected and maintained.
Pennsylvania
Department of Education
The Pennsylvania Department of Education, Division of Food and Nutrition, has applied for an ART II grant to provide training to reduce administrative errors in certification, verification, and meal counting and claiming and menu pattern compliance. Pennsylvania will identify and provide technical assistance to SFAs that are significantly out of compliance with menu planning requirements. Training will be offered through one-on-one and on-site technical assistance.