Technical Notes

Community Eligibility Data Collection

2020–2021 School Year

Methodology

The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) obtained information on schools that have adopted community eligibility during the 2020–2021 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 schools and districts with identified student percentages (ISPs) of at least 40 percent and those with ISPs between 30 and just under 40 percent (i.e., near-eligible schools and districts). For this school year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a nationwide community eligibility waiver that allowed states to extend many of the annual community eligibility deadlines, including allowing states to report eligible and near-eligible schools by June 30th, 2020.

These lists were reviewed, with missing or inconsistent data identified. In these situations, the state notes below provide an explanation of remaining data issues that are displayed in the database. FRAC compared the state-published lists of eligible and near eligible schools to the lists of participating schools from state agencies, and then compiled an exhaustive list of eligible and participating schools and districts for the 2020–2021 school year.

In response to feedback from two state agencies that their spring list of eligible schools and school districts usually include some that close or are consolidated over the summer, FRAC gave all states the option this year to provide a list of both participating and eligible schools and school districts for the 2020–2021 school year, instead of providing a list of participating schools to be compared to the spring list of eligible schools. Nine states–Alabama, Alaska, DC, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming–provided the list of eligible and participating schools.

The database currently includes data for 51 states, including the District of Columbia.

General Notes

For the 2020–2021 school year, many school districts and schools have chosen to operate their nutrition programs through the summer nutrition waivers provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. FRAC's 2020–2021 school year data request to state agencies was for the list of school districts and schools that were approved to participate in community eligibility, regardless of whether or not they are operating community eligibility or operating under the summer nutrition waivers. The school districts and schools that were approved to operate community eligibility are listed in the database as participating in community eligibility.

Any district, group of schools in a district, or school with 40 percent or more identified students can choose to participate. 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, which allows them to directly certify for free school meals children who are enrolled in Medicaid and belong to a family whose income, as defined by Medicaid, is below 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Identified students are also children who are certified for free meals without an application because they are homeless, migrant, enrolled in Head Start, or in foster care.

The schools are color-coded by ISP according to the following legend:

State Notes

Some states did not provide student enrollment information for certain schools: eight schools in Georgia, one school in Louisiana, 73 schools in Maine, one school in New Mexico.

Some states provided enrollment information of 0 students for certain schools: 42 schools in California, six schools in Florida, one school in Idaho, 149 schools in Massachusetts, two schools in Maryland, two schools in Michigan, three schools in Missouri, four schools in South Carolina, five schools in Tennessee, eight schools in Texas, one school in Washington.

The enrollment data for schools that are missing enrollment information and for those schools that have enrollment listed as 0 are treated the same in the database and are listed in the Student Enrollment column as N/A.

Some states did not provide the identified student percentage (ISP) used by adopting community eligibility schools to calculate federal reimbursements for meals served, often referred to as the "claiming ISP" or "grouped ISP." For these schools, the ISPs are shown as N/A in the database: 73 schools in Maine.

Some states reported schools' free claiming percentages (ISP multiplied by 1.6) as 100 percent, so it is impossible to know the exact grouped ISP. It can be determined that the school is participating in community eligibility with an ISP of 62.5 percent or above. In these cases, 62.5 percent was used in the database: 373 schools in Ohio.

To avoid leaving enrollment information blank, student enrollment data from the June 2020 published community eligibility list was used in the tables for the following states: 115 schools in New York.