Renewal applications opening August 4, 2020!
Complete your National School Lunch Program, Special Milk Program, and Afterschool Snack renewal for School Year (SY) 2020-21 starting 8/4.
Reminders and Updates
- Please remember to update the WINS sponsor profile page to reflect new/changed point of contact for your organization.
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New for SY 20-21! Sponsors can now adjust the start date of the school year with an August date!
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Local Education Agencies with operating days in August 2020 will not need to create a revision to the 2019-20 site calendar(s) in WINS as part of the renewal process.
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When completing the SY 20-21 site calendar, sponsors will be able to adjust the start date of the school year with an August date. Sponsors will then be able to combine August and September claims provided there were less than 10 operating days in August 2020.
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New for SY 20-21! Submit your lobbying forms in WINS!
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Private Schools ONLY
- WINS will require that you upload the most current 501c3 letter from the IRS designating your school or sponsoring organization as non-profit.
Questions? Please contact your program specialist.
All Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) At-Risk sponsors must include a responsible principal when submitting renewals in WINS.
The responsible principal is the responsible individual(s) for the program.
Per CACFP regulations, the State Agency must not approve a sponsor to operate if the institution and/or the responsible principals have been placed on the National Disqualified List (NDL) or been previously named terminated from a Child Nutrition Program. Even though your organization may already operate a USDA Child Nutrition Program, this information must be validated annually prior to application.
Submitting Your Renewal
In the WINS renewal application, the names and birthdates of the Signer of the Agreement, CACFP Contact, and CACFP Claim Contact must be provided.
For a school district, these individuals may be the Food Service Director, Superintendent, Business Manager, or other school officials.
If you have additional questions, please contact your program specialist.
This webinar series will provide current, accurate information and resources to program operators to mitigate risk of foodborne illness and COVID-19 transmission through the service of meals in Child Nutrition Programs.
Register Here
Date: Monday, July 27
Time: 12 - 1 pm PT
The second webinar, "Managing Personnel During COVID-19" will address:
- Communication among stakeholders
- Adhering to the Americans with Disabilities Act
- Selecting and handling of cloth face masks
- Considerations for appropriate screening and exclusion of food service employees from working
- Preparing for potential employee illness
Did You Miss Webinar #1?
The first webinar, "The Safe Food Handler" provided the basics of food safety and COVID-19; personal hygiene including proper use of gloves, masks, and aprons; cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting; and social distancing. Watch or download the webinar here.
USDA's Team Nutrition put together a webinar series on how to implement meal pattern changes in Child Nutrition Programs.
- Moving Forward: Update on Food Crediting in Child Nutrition Programs with Guidance for Dried Meat Products [Recorded Webinar]
- Additional Meat/Meat Alternates Options for CNPs: Crediting Tempeh and Surimi [Recorded Webinar]
- Crediting Coconut and Vegetable Noodles in CNPs [Recorded Webinar]
- Crediting Popcorn, Hominy Corn Masa and Masa Harina in Child Nutrition Programs: [Recorded Webinar]
- CN Labeling Program: Update for Industry [Recorded Webinar]
Professional Standards for school nutrition professionals requires a minimum amount of annual training hours for all program staff. The USDA Child Nutrition Program’s Professional Standards Training Tracker Tool (PSTTT) is designed to assist staff in keeping track of their annually required training hours.
Want to Learn More?
Team Nutrition is hosting a webinar on the existing features and new enhancements. Gain knowledge of tips and a demonstration of this tool!
Register Here for the webinar!
Date: Wednesday, August 12
Time: 11 am - 12 pm PT
It has come to our attention that some families may have been incorrectly denied Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) benefits. We are working with DSHS to resolve this issue and will do whatever we can to ensure qualifying families that apply will receive their benefits.
What Should Schools Do?
We encourage school districts to reach out to families in your school district through social media channels or other methods. Messaging should include information regarding who at the district families can contact if they believe they were incorrectly denied P-EBT benefits. These students should then be logged with the following information:
- Student first and last name
- Student birthdate
- Name of the school where student was enrolled between March and June 2020
- The month the student became eligible for free or reduced-price meals
- Students eligible before March 2020 - denote "March".
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Upload the log into your WINS documents so student information is not transferred via email.
- Email Child Nutrition Services when you have done this or if you have updated the log you have previously uploaded.
- Highlight the student names you have added if updating a previously submitted log.
Have Families Contact Us
If your district is not adequately staffed to collect this information from families, you can direct them to email Child Nutrition Services. This email notifies us and we are then able to check CEDARS for their child’s eligibility.
Any incorrectly denied P-EBT applications identified by OSPI will be resolved with DSHS and families will receive the benefits they qualify for.
Starting in school year 2020-2021, Child Nutrition Services will discontinue the Direct Verification (DV) list.
The verification process requires that all households in the verification sample receive a notice to respond to verification. Direct Verification has been an option during the annual verification process and discontinuation of DV may cause an increase in the time it takes to conduct the verification process.
Start Verification Earlier - Reduce the Workload
We encourage sponsors to familiarize themselves with the process of “rolling verification” – a process that starts earlier and decreases the number of applications and documents to review and process at one time.
Verification must be completed by November 15.
We will update materials and make this topic part of our Annual Training.
Have Questions? Please contact your program specialist.
Two weeks ago, we announced that we are transitioning our weekly meetings to focus on school districts and reopening for the 2020-21 School Year.
You must register for this new webinar series!
Register Here
Date: Wednesdays through the months of July and August
Time: 2 - 3 pm PT
We will continue to record these webinars and email all registrants with a follow up each week.
The USDA has released several waivers that extend through the summer, as well as some extending through June 2021.
Please visit the OSPI Nutrition & Meals Guidance webpage, under the Important Updates header, to review any of these waivers.
The National CACFP Sponsors Association is hosting a Virtual Summit in August!
Registration is $149 and includes access to 20 training sessions.
Register Here
Some sessions included in your registration:
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Facilitating Compliance in Your At-Risk Afterschool Program
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Schools as Afterschool Meals Sponsors, Sites, and Vendors
- Summer Meals: Leveraging Mobile Solutions in Rural Communities
- Food Allergies & Special Diets
- CACFP and Head Start Food Service Regulations
Discover more sessions and speaker information in the Virtual Summit Flyer.
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