School Nutrition Announcements August 18, 2020

Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT)

The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services is working on sending another batch of letters and benefit cards to families who did not previously get them. 

If families in your district have not received anything by next week, they can apply online.

We will let you know when the online application is open.

For updated P-EBT information, please go to https://mfbn.org/pebt/ [mfbn.org]

Feeding Students in the Fall

Current USDA guidance requires schools to return to the School Nutrition Programs in Fall 2020 (National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program). Schools must return to counting and claiming meals by free, reduced, and paid categories (unless operating CEP).

Nutrition flexibilities are available for School Year 2020-2021. The five nation-wide waivers allow for:

• Grab and go meals for remote students
• Multiple meals to be sent home for multiple days for remote students
• Parents to pick meals up for remote students
• Meals to be delivered to remote students
• High schools to opt out of Offer versus Serve meal service

If you would like to participate in any of the School Year 2020-2021 waivers, please complete the School Nutrition Back-To-School Flexibilities Survey. You only need to complete the sections of the survey that are applicable to the waivers you are requesting. You can fill out the survey more than once if you need to change which waivers you need for School Year 2020-2021.

For more information, contact your regional School Nutrition Specialist.

Certified Food Protection Manager Online Resources

Montana requires that school food service managers complete a certification process for safe food handling. A list of approved Certified Food Protection Manager training programs can be found at Montana Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Consumer Safety Division, Certified Food Protection Manager Training  

School Nutrition Programs Professional Standards

School Year 2020-21 Training Schedule and Continuing Education Opportunities

School Nutrition Fall Workshops - Register Now for the Zoom virtual workshops in September

OPI School Nutrition Programs Fall Workshops are less than a month away. This year, the Fall Workshops are free and will be offered fully online through Zoom.

See the registration links for dates, times and topics covered.

Optional Zoom Orientation Registration

Food Service Requirements Registration

Administrative Requirements Registration

We hope to see you on Zoom!

- OPI School Nutrition Programs Team

Expanding Access to Summer Meals: A Look at FRAC’s Annual Summer Nutrition Report August 4, 2020

FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report [default.salsalabs.org] released this week finds that 2.8 million children received a lunch through the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2019, a decrease of 77,000 children from July 2018.

The Summer Nutrition Programs provided lunch to only one child for every seven children who participated in free and reduced-price school lunch during the 2018–2019 regular school year. 

With food insecurity expected to continue to rise due to COVID-19, the Summer Nutrition Programs can — and should — better support families.

Dig into the research and see how your state is doing by reading the full summer nutrition and summer breakfast reports [default.salsalabs.org]

Cartewheel Menu Planner

OPI and Colyar Technology Solutions have partnered to offer you Cartewheel Menu Planner  

Cartewheel simplifies the process of creating healthy, delicious menus, and communicating them to your site staff.

Nutrition Contact Information

USDA Nondiscrimination Statement

The OPI is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation, require an alternate format, or have questions concerning accessibility, contact the OPI ADA Coordinator, 406-444-3161, opiada@mt.gov, TTY 406-444-0235.