Community Eligibility Provision (CEP)
State Funding Available to Schools Enrolled in the Community Eligibility Provision
The enacted FY2024 State Budget included an additional $134.6M to expand access to free school meals through the new Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) State Subsidy. This funding became available to schools in the 2023-2024 school year. Learn more
Program Basics
CEP is a federal provision that allows high-poverty schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. This option increases school meal participation by removing stigma, maximizes federal reimbursements, reduces administrative paperwork, and eliminates unpaid school meal debt. CEP schools continue to operate both the School Breakfast and National School Lunch programs, and must uphold nutrition standards and meal quality, but processes and procedures for counting and claiming reimbursable meals are simplified. CEP is available to any school, group of schools or district that has 25% or more students directly certified for free school meals, by means other than a school meal application.
Download Our Fact SheetHow CEP Works
CEP schools:
- Must provide both breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost.
- Do not track meals by fee category (i.e. free, reduced-price, paid). They simply count the total number of meals served.
- Do not collect payment/fees from students.
- Do not collect and verify school meal applications. Note: In New York State, schools must still collect alternative household income forms for other state and local funding. Learn more about best practices for collecting income forms here.
- All meals served in CEP schools are now reimbursed at the “free rate” with the CEP State Subsidy.
New York's CEP State Subsidy
The enacted FY2024 State Budget included an additional $134.6M to expand access to free school meals through the new Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) State Subsidy. This funding became available to New York schools participating in CEP starting in the 2023-2024 school year. The CEP State Subsidy ensures all CEP meals are reimbursed at the “free rate”, allowing all eligible New York schools to provide free meals to all students while alleviating the financial burden.
The CEP State Subsidy is a critical step in New York’s expansion of free school meals. In the first year of implementation, the CEP State Subsidy enabled over 1,200 schools to newly adopt CEP, effectively expanding access to free school meals to more than 347,000 additional students.
Benefits of CEP
CEP Benefits Students and Schools:
- Reduces the administrative burden—schools no longer collect fees or verify school meal applications
- Eliminates the stigma—ending the perception that school breakfast and lunch are just for “poor kids”
- Boosts participation—allowing more kids to experience the educational and health benefits linked to eating school meals
- Simplifies counting and claiming—optimizing the impact of offering Breakfast After the Bell
- Eliminates unpaid school meal debt—schools no longer have to foot the bill for unpaid meal fees or try to collect them from families
Eligibility
Any district, group of schools in a district, or individual school with 25% or more “identified students”—children eligible for free school meals who are identified by means other than an individual household application—can participate in CEP.
Identified students include:
- Children that are directly certified for free school meals because their household participates in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), and in certain instances, Medicaid.
- Children certified for free school meals without an application because they are homeless or a runaway, migrant, in foster care, or participating in Head Start.
Adopting and Sustaining CEP
When determining eligibility and applying for CEP, schools must use direct certification to calculate their percentage of identified students. Two key strategies to effectively capture all low-income students include:
- Implement strong direct certification practices: This strategy ensures schools accurately reflect student poverty thereby improving a school’s chances of qualifying for CEP. Learn more about direct certification best practices from our tip sheet.
- Connect Families to SNAP: Increasing the number of eligible families participating in SNAP increases schools’ number of identified students, thereby better positioning schools to adopt and sustain CEP. As trusted messengers, schools can use our SNAP Outreach Toolkit to spread the word to families.
How to apply
Eligible school districts must declare their intent to implement CEP in a school or group of schools for the upcoming school year by June 30. This requires applying to the New York State Education Department (NYSED).
Eligibility is based on the percentage of identified students calculated using enrollment as of April 1 and the current school year’s direct certification data. View the application and instructions.
Maximizing CEP’s Impact
Once free breakfast is available to all students, CEP schools can make it more accessible by incorporating it into the school day, with Breakfast After the Bell programs including Breakfast in the Classroom, Grab and Go and Second Chance Breakfast.
Schools that implement CEP without alternative breakfast service models have seen minimal increases in breakfast participation when compared to schools that have implemented CEP in addition to a Breakfast after the Bell program. By far, the combination of Breakfast After the Bell and CEP yields the largest increase in participation.
More Resources
CEP & School Funding Streams:
We can help
We can provide you with resources, data, and best-practices to improve participation in school meal programs. We provide tailored one-on-one assistance to schools, supported by extensive district-level analysis, to help:
- Increase access to and participation in the School Breakfast Program
- Implement alternative breakfast service models
- Offer universal meals through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP)
- Maximize direct certification, program participation, and funding for successful meal programs.
Contact Jessica Pino-Goodspeed, Manager, School Meals Policy & Engagement, for assistance.
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