National School Lunch Program

The following memo was released by USDA and can be found at: https://www.fns.usda.gov/f2s/geographic-preference-expansion.

On April 25, 2024, The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the final rule titled, Child Nutrition Programs: Meal Patterns Consistent with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is the next step in continuing the science-based improvement of school meals.

A full description of all provisions, implementation timelines and additional resources can be found here:
Updates to the School Nutrition Standards | Food and Nutrition Service (usda.gov)

The New York State Education Department, Child Nutrition Program Office is thrilled to announce that we have partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Harvest NY, to host the first ever NY Farm to School Summit with the theme:It takes a Village; Cultivating Community in Farm to School !

The inaugural Summit will take place in Syracuse, NY, at the OnCenter, this November 21st and 22^nd with optional pre-Summit field trips on November 20th.

**This updates the June 22, 2023 memo from the Department of Agriculture and Markets.**

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 established requirements for SFAs conducting outreach for the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).  SFAs may distribute information through means normally used to communicate with households of enrolled children. Acceptable outreach activities may include developing and distributing printed and electronic materials that provide information on the availability and location of summer meals to families of school children prior to the end of the school year.  Here are some outreach strategies for you:

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is now approved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to offer waivers to allow school food authorities (SFAs) to serve non-congregate meals to students who celebrate Ramadan. During Ramadan, students fast or refrain from eating during typical daylight hours, including when school breakfast and/or lunch is served. These waivers allow SFAs to provide students who attend school and are fasting during Ramadan with non-congregate breakfast and lunch meals to consume after daylight hours.

These waivers may only be used:

The New York State Education Department (SED) has requested State-level waiver authority from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to approve the following operational flexibilities for non-congregate meal service through the end of school year 2023-24.

*This is a consolidated list of information available on the website regarding program operations for school year 2024-2025 Program operations.  Recent updates will be noted by the asterisk (*).

Operations

The NYSED Child Nutrition Program Office is thrilled to announce that we have partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Harvest NY, to host the first ever NY Farm to School Summit with the theme: It takes a Village!

The summit will be held November 21st-22nd, 2024 at the OnCenter in Syracuse, NY. This exciting event will increase the capacity of program operators to buy and serve local NY foods in their school meals programs and will offer ample opportunities for developing partnerships between schools and local farmers/producers.

Schools that participate in the afterschool snack program serve reimbursable snacks to every student at no charge. For Community Eligibility Schools (CEP) schools, snack claims will be reimbursed according to the school’s snack needy status. Schools that qualify as snack needy are reimbursed for all snacks at the federal free rate. CEP schools that do not qualify as snack needy (non-snack needy) are reimbursed for snacks based on the approved CEP claiming percentage.