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Community eligibility is a federal option that enables high-needs schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students. To qualify, schools must meet a certain threshold of poverty as measured by their identified student percentage (ISP).
The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) obtained information on schools that have adopted community eligibility during the 2023–2024 school year from state agencies that administer the federal child nutrition programs. Under federal law, states are required to publish, by May 1 of each year, a list of CEP-eligible and near-eligible schools and districts. When the 2023–2024 school year began, CEP-eligible schools and school districts were ones with ISPs of at least 40 percent, and near-eligible schools and school districts were those with ISPs between 30 percent and just under 40 percent. In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) expanded CEP eligibility to schools and school districts with an ISP of at least 25 percent and classified near-eligible schools and school districts as those with ISPs between 15 percent and just under 25 percent. Furthermore, USDA granted states the ability to waive the June 30, 2023 election deadline and allow schools to adopt CEP at the new, lower thresholds until March 31, 2024. Twenty-eight states applied for a waiver allowing midyear adoption, although not every state had schools elect to participate in CEP midyear.
FRAC compared these state-published eligibility lists to the participation lists from state agencies and compiled a comprehensive list of eligible and participating schools and districts for the 2023–2024 school year. The database currently includes data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each entry, when available, contains the following information for a given school: state, school district, school name, ISP, student enrollment, and current participation status.
Visit FRAC's Community Eligibility webpage for more information about this provision.
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State | School District (Local Educational Agency or LEA) | School | Identified Student Percentage (ISP) | Participation in CEP | Student Enrollment (Where Available) |
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The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) obtained information on schools that have adopted community eligibility during the 2023–2024 school year from state agencies that administer the federal school nutrition programs. Under federal law, states are required to publish, by May 1 of each year, a list of CEP-eligible and near-eligible schools and districts. When the 2023–2024 school year began, CEP-eligible schools and school districts were ones with identified student percentages (ISPs) of at least 40 percent, and near-eligible schools and school districts were those with ISPs between 30 percent and just under 40 percent. In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) expanded CEP eligibility to schools and school districts with an ISP of at least 25 percent and classified near-eligible schools and school districts as those with ISPs between 15 percent and just under 25 percent. Furthermore, USDA granted states the ability to waive the June 30, 2023 election deadline and allow schools to adopt CEP at the new, lower thresholds until March 31, 2024. Twenty-eight states applied for a waiver allowing midyear adoption, although not every state had schools elect to participate in CEP midyear.
To examine CEP participation against eligibility, FRAC compared states' May 2023 eligibility lists to the participation files provided by the state agency upon request. In determining district eligibility, FRAC treated a district as eligible if it contained at least one eligible school. FRAC treated a school as eligible if it appeared on a state's published eligibility list above the 40 percent threshold, or if it appeared on the participation list below 40 percent ISP. Schools that were missing from a state's eligibility list, but appeared on its participation list were treated as eligible. Additionally, given the varying allowance for midyear adoption at the 25 percent threshold, only schools that participated below 40 percent ISP were counted toward eligibility. Non-participating schools with ISPs lower than 40 percent were not counted toward eligibility.
FRAC gave states the option to report both eligible and adopting schools in the CEP participation data collection. This gave states the opportunity to update their eligible schools list to reflect any school closures or consolidations. Fifteen states — Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia — provided both eligible and adopting schools for this analysis.
The 2023–2024 CEP participation data reflects the point in time when the data was received from the state agency and may differ slightly from other participation data sources. As previously mentioned, 28 states applied for a USDA waiver allowing midyear CEP adoption at the lower 25 percent threshold — Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Wyoming, and West Virginia. States had the authority to determine their own application deadlines if they did not surpass the federal deadline of March 31, 2024. While individual states' application deadlines are unknown, it is possible that some states continued to allow schools and school districts to adopt CEP after they submitted participation data to FRAC, resulting in some participating schools not being captured in this database.
Any district, group of schools in a district, or school meeting the applicable ISP — 25 percent in waiver states or 40 percent in non-waiver states — can choose to participate in CEP. Identified students include children directly certified for free school meals through data-matching because their households receive assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). Some states participate in the Medicaid Direct Certification Demonstration Project, which allows them to directly certify for free school meals children who are enrolled in Medicaid and belong to a family who meet an income test. Identified students are also children who are certified for free meals without an application because they are unhoused, migrant, enrolled in Head Start, or in foster care.
The schools are color-coded by ISP according to the following legend:
| ISP 25%–39% |
| ISP 40%–49% |
| ISP 50%–59% |
| ISP 60% and higher |
| ISP Unavailable |
The database includes data for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The participation data requested from state agencies included whether schools elected to adopt community eligibility, the ISP the schools use to determine the federal reimbursement for meals served, and the total number of students attending each adopting school. The ISP schools use to determine the federal reimbursement for meals served, sometimes called the group or claiming ISP, is reported for participating schools, while the individual or proxy ISP is reported for non-participating schools. Eight states — California, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington — provided individual schools' ISP for participating schools. Therefore, these states may have schools indicated in ISP categories that do not accurately reflect the ISP used to determine federal reimbursements. Similarly, participation data for Illinois was pulled from their May 2024 CEP eligibility list and reports individual schools' ISP rather than the ISP used to determine federal reimbursements. California reported 61 schools without an ISP; Colorado reported two schools without an ISP; Illinois reported one school without an ISP; and Louisiana reported 181 schools without an ISP.
Some states reported schools' free-claiming percentages (ISP multiplied by 1.6) rather than the ISP. The reverse calculation (free-claiming percentage divided by 1.6) was completed to determine the appropriate ISP category for these schools. While it is impossible to know the exact grouped ISP, it can be determined that the school is participating in CEP with an ISP of at least 62.5 percent.
The following states had schools that did not provide student enrollment numbers:
Tennessee did not provide enrollment data in their CEP participation file; however, FRAC was able to identify enrollment from the May 2023 eligibility list for 823 schools, leaving 63 schools without any reported enrollment. Oklahoma reported multiple enrollment figures for over 500 schools. FRAC used the lowest reported enrollment when calculating Oklahoma's total student enrollment.