National School Lunch Program

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.

On December 7, 2023, Wayne Farms, LLC, of Decatur, Alabama, recalled approximately 1,377 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken breast products that may be undercooked.  This recall does

For your awareness, a CDC food safety alert regarding an outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to cantaloupes has been updated. Seven children attended childcare centers before they got sick. Children under 5 can get very sick from Salmonella.

FNS is pleased to release TA 01-2024: Crediting Traditional Indigenous Foods in Child Nutrition Programs. This memorandum is now available at https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/crediting-traditional-indigenous-foods and supersedes TA 01-2015: Child Nutrition Programs and Traditional Foods.

Due to the unexpected nationwide shortage of paper milk cartons, many School Food Authorities (SFAs) are not able to obtain milk in half pints for their school meals programs. Although SFAs are expected to meet the fluid milk requirements to the greatest extent possible, supply chain disruptions, including disruptions that limit milk variety or affect serving size, are considered a temporary emergency condition. In these instances, SFAs are allowed to serve and claim meals during the emergency period by:

Printer-friendly version of the full USDA memo can be found here.

On August 23, 2023, The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the Child Nutrition Program Integrity final rule. This final rule aims to help USDA and state administering agencies reduce program errors of all types, resulting in more efficient operations and improved compliance with program requirements.