State, Local, and Tribal Government - State Child Nutrition Agency, SFA, and Schools

APPENDIX B1. SFA REQUEST FOR E-RECORDS (NON-CEP SCHOOLS FOR HOUSEHOLD SAMPLING)

FOR SFAS WITH AT LEAST ONE NON-CEP OR PROVISION 1, 2, OR 3 SCHOOL

OMB Number: 0584-0530

Expiration Date: XX/XX/XXXX

Dear <<SFA CONTACT NAME>>,

Thank you for agreeing to participate in the third Access, Participation, Eligibility and Certification Study (APEC III) series.

As a reminder, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has contracted with Westat to conduct APEC III. APEC III is a research study, not an audit of any type. All information collected will be kept private to the extent provided by law and will not affect meal reimbursements or meal program benefits for any participating State agency, SFA, school, or household.

Next Steps

In order to complete the household sampling for the study, we request that you submit a data file (electronically via the APEC III Web Portal) with a complete list of students enrolled in the school(s) sampled from your SFA for the 2017-2018 school year. Your sampled schools are:

[SCHOOL 1 NAME], [SCHOOL 1 ADDRESS]

[SCHOOL 2 NAME], [SCHOOL 2 ADDRESS]

[SCHOOL 3 NAME], [SCHOOL 3 ADDRESS]

[IF APPLICABLE] Provision 1, 2, or 3 Schools*

[PROVISION SCHOOL 1 NAME], [PROVISION SCHOOL 1 ADDRESS]

[PROVISION SCHOOL 2 NAME], [PROVISION SCHOOL 2 ADDRESS]

[PROVISION SCHOOL 3 NAME], [PROVISION SCHOOL 3 ADDRESS]

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-0530. The time required for the SFA Director to provide this information collection is estimated to average 30 minutes per response, including the time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gather and maintain the data needed, and complete and review the collection of information.

We request that you submit this file on/around [INSERT DATE], which is five weeks after the first day of school year 2017-2018. The data file(s) should contain the following information for each student, by school:

1. Student Name

2. Student Date of Birth

3. Student Certification status for SY 2017-2018 (free, reduced or paid)

4. Flag to indicate if an application for free or reduced priced meals was submitted

   1. If yes, include application date

5. Flag to indicate if the student was directly certified for free meals

   1. If yes, include date of certification

6. Student’s Parent contact information

   1. Name, address, phone number, and email address

[IF APPLICABLE: For the Provision schools, provide the data file for the base year].

If you have questions, need assistance or foresee any issues with this request, please feel free to contact us at 1-855-820-6138 or [email protected].

Thank you in advance for your help and cooperation.

Sincerely,

APEC III Research Team

*Provision 1, 2, or 3 schools refers to three alternative provisions to the normal requirements for annual determinations of eligibility for free and reduced price school meals and daily meal counts by type (free, reduced price and paid meals) at the point of service.

Provision 1 reduces application burdens by allowing free eligibility to be certified for a 2-year period.

Provision 2 reduces application burdens and simplifies meal counting and claiming procedures. It allows schools to establish claiming percentages and to serve all meals at no charge for a 4-year period.

Provision 3 reduces application burdens and meal counting and claiming procedures. It allows schools to simply receive the same level of Federal cash and commodity assistance each year, with some adjustments, for a 4-year period.

More details can be found at https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/provisions-1-2-and-3

MANUAL PROCESS FOR HOUSEHOLD SAMPLING (NON-CEP SCHOOLS)

SUMMARY

This is a “back up” manual process if the SFA does not respond to the electronic record request. This is expected to be used very seldom, if at all. This process will be completed by the data collector with no additional burden to the SFA than what is included in the application abstraction burden estimates.

Purpose: In the event that household sampling was not completed prior to the site visit, data collectors should use this as a guide to manually conduct sampling while on site at the SFA. This document presents a summary of the steps followed by an example for illustration.

Manual Process Steps:

1. Obtain a list of completed household application from each sampled school.

2. Number the students on the list from 1 to x, where x equals the total number of applications.

3. Using a sampling program on the data collector’s laptop enter the total number applications.

4. The sampling program will follow the sampling procedures as if an electronic file had been received from the SFA and provide the numbers assigned in Step 2.

5. The data collector will request to see the applications sampled for the study.

6. Using the form for Application Data Abstraction (Appendix B7), the data collector will abstract key data elements from either the hard copy application or the electronic records for each sampled student and enter the data directly onto the web based data entry from on the laptop.

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