Child nutrition programs, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are open to participation by private schools. Applications for participation in any of the Child Nutrition Programs are obtained by contacting the Child Nutrition Program coordinator for your state or by calling Alberta Frost, Director, Child Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 3101 Park Center Drive, Alexandria, VA 22302, telephone 703/305-2620.

The programs sponsored by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that are available to Catholic school students are:

National School Lunch and National School Breakfast Programs
The National School Lunch and the National School Breakfast Programs provide cash and commodity assistance to schools that serve meals that meet the dietary requirements of the statute. Through this program, schools provide free or reduced-price meals to students that qualify under the poverty guidelines of the program, which are adjusted for family size. Other children may purchase meals at cost. Schools receive reimbursement for each meal served. The highest rates of reimbursement are provided for meals served to children eligible for free meals and reduced-price meals.

Special Milk Program
The Special Milk Program reimburses participating schools for a portion of their expenditures in providing milk to students of all income ranges. Students may qualify for free milk under this program. Schools not participating in other federally funded food programs may participate.

The phrase, eligibility for free and reduced price lunch, is appearing more frequently in educational legislation and is being assigned a prominent role in the policy-making processes. Federal aid to education is being legislated in the context of targeted assistance to provide greater resources to communities/schools with children in the greatest need. Since academic need is generally correlated with low socio-economic status, funds for programs are allocated on formulas based on poverty criterion.

Originally the term "eligible for school lunch" referred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the regulations regarding family size and income as the determinates of a student’s eligibility to receive federally subsidized lunch in school. Presently, however, the term is used as a synonym for degree of poverty and is the criteria for participation in other federal programs, such as Title I and the E-Rate telecommunications discounts.

Although poverty indicators are available from neighborhood census tract data, actual counts of individual family income status are being required, creating problems for schools which must independently obtain such data. For many Catholic schools the administrative burden of collecting such data, as well as objections to obtaining sensitive information about family income when students would not be receiving any direct benefit, is problematic. However, it is mandatory if students are to receive benefits.

Eligibility criteria do not require that a school actually offer the lunch program. Requests for such information want to know what number of students or what percentage of the student population would be eligible to receive the benefit if the school did offer it.

There are nine different ways to calculate the eligibility of students for the school lunch program -- any ONE of these factors will qualify a student as eligible. A student qualifies as "eligible" if he/she comes from a family which:

1. Has a family income level that meets these NSLP criteria:

The criteria for determining the school discount percentage for the E-Rate program is satisfied by using the guidelines for reduced price meals. The income eligibility schedule for free lunch may be found in the US Department of Agriculture's website listed below.

These guidelines are for eligibility for reduced price meals in the 48 contiguous United States, District of Columbia, Guam and the Territories. Cost of living adjustments are provided for Alaska and Hawaii. For complete information about federal poverty guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii, as well as guidelines for free meals, consult the US Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service website at http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/Default.htm.

• Receives Aid for Dependent Children (ADC) benefits
• Receives food stamps
• Receives Medicaid
• Receives Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• Receives federal public housing assistance, such as Section 8
• Participates in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
• Receives tuition assistance (if your school income eligibility criteria approximates NSLP guidelines)
• Is a foster child
• Only if data cannot be obtained, after several attempts, to verify any of the above categories, two other procedures are available to the principal:

1. a) Administrative Prerogative -- after unsuccessfully attempting to obtain data to substantiated one of the nine categories above, the principal makes some judgment from personal observation about the poverty of the families that did not respond to requests for poverty data.
2. b) Extrapolation Procedure - To include a percentage of those students who did not comply with requests for data to verify poverty status, the principal may use the data of the known poverty counts of the school as a representative sample of actual data and then project that number upon the total school register to determine a final figure of percentage of poverty.

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Emergency Crisis Planning

In addition to the natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes, schools are also faced with potential terrorist assaults involving explosive devices as well as biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological weapons.  School administrators are encouraged to review emergency plans in light of the many new threats that have emerged in the post-9/11 world.