Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Meal Pattern and Pre-Kindergarten (PK) Meals
- PK students who are not co-mingled with kindergarten through grade five students must be served the CACFP meal pattern that corresponds to their age.
- Co-mingled is defined as serving meals to preschool and kindergarten through grade five students in the same service area at the same time.
- Schools where students are co-mingled may choose to follow the grade-appropriate meal patterns for each grade group, or serve the kindergarten through grade five meal pattern to all. This follows guidance of USDA policy memo SP37-2017.
Join Fern Bachner, CACFP specialist for a CACFP meal pattern refresher training on Wednesday, August 30, at 2 p.m. ET. Register here.
Open Office Hours
IDOE will host open office hours each Thursday afternoon for the next several weeks. The open session will allow for questions related to Direct Certification (DC), CNPweb program year (PY) 2024 application, and general free and reduced application questions. The open session is for questions and answers only and will not qualify for professional development training hours. Join us Thursday, August 10, at 2 p.m.
Food Day 2023 - Local Protein
IDOE Food Day 2023 celebrates local protein! School food authorities (SFAs) can celebrate any day in the month of October. Unsure where to start? Check out the upcoming webinars for support.
- Using Local Proteins in Child Nutrition Recipes
Leading Healthy Schools
The Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE) America is excited to introduce Leading Healthy Schools, a free professional development program designed to equip school and district administrators with the knowledge and skills to lead healthy schools.
This year-long program provides:
- Professional development sessions investigating best practice in implementation of school health programs and policies.
- An online community of practice shared with administrators across the country.
- Individualized coaching and support.
- Incentives, like complimentary registration and a travel stipend to attend the SHAPE National Convention.
- Incentives for schools, like complimentary SHAPE America membership for a teacher and opportunities to win fitness equipment!
Find more information here and feel free to share with school and district leaders in your network. The application deadline is Monday, August 28. Contact Kaitlyn Gaddis Thompson with questions.
Team Nutrition Menu Resource
USDA’s Team Nutrition is excited to announce the release of the new School Lunch Menu E-Poster. This resource is designed for school nutrition programs to display daily lunch menu options and remind students to eat a variety of foods while building a reimbursable meal. The fillable pdf file can be used for electronic message boards, webpages, and social media or can be printed and displayed in sign holders. To view and/or download, click here.
USDA Foods Beginning of Year Reminders
In case you missed the live training, here’s the recorded version: USDA Foods Beginning of Year Reminders.
Introducing Food Distribution Program (FDP) 2.0
What is it? FDP 2.0 is new program that will replace FDP software in CNPweb.
Who will use it? Schools, warehouses, and IDOE will use for the 2024-2025 school year.
When? The first phase of FDP 2.0 will be rolled out in December 2023 for school sponsors to complete the Annual Pre-order (Forecast) Survey in early 2024.
Why? The current FDP system will be retired for a more user friendly and updated system.
There will be more information forthcoming on access, logins, training and rollout phases in future newsletters.
We Want to Hear from You!
Although school is just beginning, we want to know which USDA Foods your school would like to see on the school year 2024-2025 annual pre-order (forecast) survey. The annual pre-order survey will open in early 2024. Please take a moment to complete the USDA Foods Wishlist Survey. If we receive enough interest, we may add these items to the survey. The deadline to provide feedback is Friday, September 29.
Disasters, Holds, and Recalls
Ever wonder what to do during a USDA Foods recall? IDOE has developed training materials to answer these questions.
K12 Foodservice and ProcessorLink Training
Schools that allocated pounds to processors are required to monitor and manage those pounds for proper inventory management. IDOE is hosting a training for each commodity tracking website. Learn how to monitor and manage processor pounds, select distributors, run reports and review months on hand.
Back to School Refresher and Reminders
Kick off the year right! Join us for a back to school refresher and reminders webinar.
Annual Financial Report (AFR) Webinars
AFR walk-through webinars will be hosted in August. Each webinar will show sponsors how to complete the 2023 AFR and participants will have the opportunity to ask questions. All webinar presentations will be the same so sponsors can choose only one session.
Free and Reduced Webinar Series
Calling all free and reduced processors! Join IDOE for an application and direct certification webinar series. Each training session will credit toward professional development training hours and fulfill the training requirement for application processors.
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DC Basics- Learn about upgrades to the system for PY 2024 and how to pull and read reports.
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Application Processing- Walk through how to identify a completed application and the steps of the approval process.
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Verification for Cause- Learn how to select applications to verify for cause and basic steps through the process.
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DC- Processing Possible Matches- Review the necessary steps to ensure the possible match student is correct.
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Eligibility Disclosure- Learn when free and reduced eligibility can be disclosed to groups outside of food services for purposes other than meal benefits along with tips and tricks to ensuring the information is used as intended.
Registration links for the training series can be found on IDOE's Training webpage.
Sponsor Number Login Ending
One year ago, IDOE moved to single-user login for CNPweb. With the change, sponsors designated a CNPweb administrator who has the ability to add users to CNPweb with the access of their choice. The sponsor number login will be shut off on Wednesday, August 16. Starting that date, the single user login must be used when accessing CNPweb. This login username format will be the sponsor number with an underscore and a unique username. For example, 0009_jdoe or similar.
If you do not have single user access, please contact your local CNPweb administrator. If you have additional issues, please use the CNPweb help form.
Crediting Resources Now Available in Spanish
The Crediting Fruits, Meats/Meat Alternates, and Milk in the Child Nutrition Programs tip sheets are now available in Spanish. Great resources for school lunch staff, these simple tip sheets highlight the basics of crediting for these three meal components across all Child Nutrition Programs. View the resources here.
Medicaid Renewal Resources
Managed Health Services (MHS)
- Everyone with Medicaid will need to renew their coverage in the coming year. Anyone covered by Indiana Medicaid should make sure the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) has their correct address. They can update their information on the benefits portal or by calling 800-403-0864. It is also important that they open and respond to all mail from FSSA and their health plan (Anthem, CareSource, MDwise, MHS, or United Healthcare).
- For questions, reach out directly to Elizabeth Sons, MHS School Based Service Administrator and Chair of the Indiana Healthy Schools Action Tea.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
- Reminder Letter Templates: downloadable flyer(s) (available in English and Spanish).
- Utilize CMS’s Communications Toolkit (available in multiple languages, including English and Spanish) to execute the following:
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Remind CNP participants about renewing their Medicaid or CHIP coverage and to update their address with their state Medicaid agency.
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Launch a text messaging campaign to reach CNP participants who maybe on Medicaid or CHIP. See CMS's toolkit for sample text messages.
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Promote social media content and graphics pulled from CMS’s toolkit on your social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
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Uplift HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s video (in English and Spanish) on Medicaid renewals across your social media channels.
Upcoming Dates |
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Thursday, August 10, at 2 p.m.
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IDOE Open Office Hours
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Tuesday, August 15, from 10 to 11 a.m. ET
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K12 Foodservice training
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Wednesday, August 16
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Sponsor number login shut off date
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Thursday, August 17, at 10 a.m. ET
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AFR walk-through webinar. Register here.
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Tuesday, August 22, at 10 a.m. ET
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Back to School Refresher and Reminders webinar. Register here.
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Tuesday, August 22, at 1 p.m. ET
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AFR walk-through webinar. Register here.
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Wednesday, August 23, from 11 a.m. to noon ET
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ProcessorLink training
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Monday, August 28
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Leading Healthy Schools application deadline
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Wednesday, August 30, at 2 p.m. ET
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CACFP meal pattern refresher training. Register here.
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Friday, September 1
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Annual Financial Report (AFR) due
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Thursday, September 14, at 2 p.m. ET
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Celebrating Food Day webinar. Register here.
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Thursday, September 28, at 2 p.m. ET
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Using Local Proteins in Child Nutrition Recipes webinar. Register here.
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Friday, September 29
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USDA Foods Wishlist Survey deadline
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