Arnette Cowan, MS, RD, LDN
Head, Special Nutrition Programs Unit

Enclosed is a listing of all schools in which at least 50 percent of the enrolled students are eligible for free or reduced price school meals. Effective immediately, you must use this data to assign tier designations for all new family day care home providers applying to the Child and Adult Care Food Program. You are not required to use this new school data to reclassify your existing family day care providers. Only elementary school data can be used to classify day care homes. School data cannot be used in cases in which bussing or other bases of attendance, such as magnet or charter schools, result in school data not being representative of an attendance area's household income levels. In these cases, census data should generally be consulted instead of school data.

Please remember that the regulations specify that it is the sponsoring organizations responsibility to ensure that only appropriate homes are given Tier I designation. Even if the school data indicates that a provider should be classified Tier I, if the sponsoring organization "believes that a segment of an otherwise eligible elementary school attendance area is non-needy, the sponsoring organization must take additional steps to ensure that homes within that attendance area have been appropriately classified." The regulation goes on to specify that in such cases, sponsoring organizations should review the census data. If the census data indicated that the home should be classified as Tier II, the sponsoring organization must classify the home as Tier II unless the provider can document that their income is below 185 percent of poverty.

Conversely, the rules recognized that school data may not reflect "pocket of poverty" located within a school boundary area in which less than 50 percent of the children are eligible for free and reduced price meals. In such cases, the rules allow sponsoring organizations, after obtaining permission from the State Agency, to use census data to classify the home.

Special Nutrition Program will continue to provide, upon request, census information based upon provider addresses.

Please note if you are sponsoring an "at risk" after school facility, this school data can be used to determine if the facility is located in an area in which the school is 50% needy. Elementary, middle, or high school data can be used to make this determination.

If you have questions or need additional information, contact me at (919) 715-1926.

cc: SNP Staff