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POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

Is Your School Eligible to Become Hunger Free?

With the August 31 deadline fast approaching for schools to adopt the Community Eligibility Provision for the new school year, we’ve created a searchable database listing each state’s eligible schools.

Community eligibility, which becomes available nationwide this year, enables high-poverty schools and school districts to serve breakfast and lunch to all students at no charge.

The database also lists each state’s Identified Student Percentage (ISP), or the share of students who are already approved for free meals without an application because they either have been identified as low income by another program (such as SNAP, formerly food stamps) or are considered at risk of hunger (because they are homeless or in foster care, for example).

School districts, individual schools, or groups of schools can qualify for community eligibility if their ISP is at least 40 percent.  And under community eligibility, schools with higher ISPs receive higher federal reimbursements for the meals they serve.

For more on community eligibility, see this detailed report.