FNS Documents & Resources

Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, can be devastating to communities and require a quick response. Schools, child care centers, and summer sites that operate the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, or the Summer Food Service Program can help minimize disruptions to your family.

FNS is offering this comparison table to assist state agencies and program operators as they transition from operations under COVID-19 nationwide waivers to operations designed around their own unique circumstances.

This fact sheet summarizes the methods used in the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study (SNMCS) to collect, process, and analyze data to estimate the cost of producing reimbursable school meals. The methods were based on approaches used in prior USDA studies.

This fact sheet describes the methods used in the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study (SNMCS) to collect, process, and analyze data on students’ dietary intakes.

This fact sheet describes the methods used in the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study (SNMCS) to collect, process, and analyze data to examine nutritional characteristics of school meals. 

This fact sheet describes the methods used in the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study (SNMCS) to collect, process, and analyze data to assess plate waste in the school meal programs.

The School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study was a comprehensive study of the school meal programs. This fact sheet provides an overview of the design and implementation of the SNMCS, including the research objectives, sample design, data collection approach, and response rates. 

The Special Milk Program provides milk to children in schools, child care institutions, and eligible camps that do not participate in other Federal child nutrition programs. The SMP reimburses schools and institutions for the milk they serve. Schools participating in the National School Lunch or School Breakfast Programs may serve milk through SMP to children enrolled in half-day pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs if those children do not have access to the breakfast or lunch meal service.

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a federally funded, State-administered program that reimburses providers who serve free, nutritious meals to children and teens in low-income areas when school is not in session.

FNS issued eight child nutrition programs off-site monitoring fact sheets to assist states and sponsors in conducting off-site monitoring of child nutrition programs during the pandemic. These documents include a fact sheet that has background information on all programs, as well as separate facts sheets for state and local operators for each program.