The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among students in the nation’s poorest elementary schools by providing free fresh fruits and vegetables to students outside of regular school meals. The results presented in this interim report, for the 2010-2011 school year, focus on the total quantity of fruits and vegetables consumed and total energy intake (also referred to as total caloric intake), allowing the assessment of whether any additional fruit and vegetable consumption was in addition to or in place of other foods consumed.
Pursuant to the 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Act, FNS initiated and carried out the Summer Food for Children demonstration project, aimed at preventing hunger among children during summer months.
The assessment provides a national estimate of the share of CACFP participating family daycare homes that are approved for an incorrect level of per meal reimbursement, or reimbursement "tier," for their circumstances. Tiering errors result in improper payments because misclassified family daycare homes do not receive the appropriate level of reimbursement for the meals and snacks provided to the children. The assessment also estimates the dollar amount of improper payments attributable to family daycare home tiering errors.
This is the sixth in a series of annual reports that examines the administrative accuracy of eligibility determinations and benefit issuance for free or reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch Program. About 98 percent of students submitting applications for meal benefits in school year 2009/10 were certified for the correct level of meal benefits, based on information in the application files. This was comparable to school year 2008/09.
This is a report of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board, which was commissioned by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. It is available here by permission. It may also be obtained through the Institute of Medicine website. This is the final version of the report. An earlier, prepublication version was made available in November 2010, but should no longer be used. This final version includes some important corrections.
This report summarizes the results of the school year 2008-09 application verification process for the NSLP and SBP. Each year, LEAs review a sample of applications that they approved for free or reduced-price school meal benefits at the start of the school year.
This study identifies how spending patterns, such as the rate at which households spend their benefit, changed following the ARRA benefit increase and analyzes how spending patterns differed across household characteristics, time and states.
This is the fifth in a series of annual reports that examines administrative error incurred during the local educational agency’s (LEA) approval process of applications for free and reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
This report responds to the legislative requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Under direct certification, children are determined eligible for free school meals without the need for household applications by using data from other means-tested programs.
To ensure program integrity, school districts must sample household applications certified for free or reduced-price meals, contact the households, and verify eligibility. This process (known as household verification) can be burdensome for both school officials and households. Direct verification uses information from certain other means-tested programs to verify eligibility without contacting applicants. Potential benefits include: less burden for households, less work for school officials, and fewer students with school meal benefits terminated because of nonresponse to verification requests.