Food for Thought Spring 2022

QUARTERLY UPDATES

state agency HAPPENINGS

Updates & Reminders The USDA recently released new guidance and information regarding The Child Nutrition Programs: Transitional Standards for Milk, Whole Grains, and Sodium Final Rule . These new standards will begin next school year in 2022-2023 and extend into school year 2023-2024. These new standards are to serve as a bridge to transition schools to the USDA’s future goals in order to provide kids with high-quality, nutritious meals that support their health and development. While these transitional standards are in place, the USDA is working to develop long-term standards based on the newest Dietary Guidelines for Americans and input from partners like you. The USDA expects that the updated standards proposed rule will be published in Fall 2022. IDOE is awaiting clarification and further information regarding these transitional standards, but if you have any questions or concerns specific to your program’s operations, please contact your field specialist. Recent information from the USDA has clarified guidance related to hiring standards and annual training requirements for the role of Food Service Director (FSD). School Food Authorities (SFAs) that choose to outsource management of some or all food service operations to another company or co-op, such as a Food Service Management Company (FSMC), Vendor, or Educational Services Center, are required by the USDA to meet the following criteria: ● The SFA must maintain oversight and responsibility for planning, administering, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the school meal programs. This means the FSD must be hired by the SFA, not the company or co-op. ● Even if the company or co-op appoints a person to oversee food service director duties, the role of FSD must still also remain with the SFA. The USDA hiring standards and annual training requirements are applicable to this role. ● If the school nutrition director duties are equally shared between multiple people, then all individuals must meet the FSD hiring standards. This means that while the SFA must appoint an FSD who meets the hiring standards, the company or co-op might also appoint someone to manage the FSD duties. This person is also required to meet the hiring standards and the training requirements. ● Qualified FSDs, whether hired by the SFA or the company/co-op, must regularly provide on-site assistance and monitoring of all sites under the sponsor. Regular monitoring means that the FSD must be on site at least for a measurable portion of each

week to ensure food safety, meal pattern, and meal count documentation is maintained. This may require additional changes within your food service program, and SFAs will be granted an allowance of time to comply with this requirement. However, beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, all SFAs will be expected to have a named food service director on site who meets the requirements as outlined above. Spring is here! Make sure that your program is on track for completing all necessary requirements, reminders, and notifications for the school year. ● Make sure you notify families that your sponsor is implementing Offer vs. Serve if applicable. ● If your school is serving breakfast, don’t forget that you should notify families again that this option is available! ● Now is also a great time to remind families of the process for requesting meal modifications and to remind them that if anything should be changed on a medical statement form to let you know! ● Also, don’t forget that all schools are required to have at least two health inspections per school year. If you have not already sent a notice to your local health department, now is the time! ● Make sure you are on track with completing your claims on time. Click here for a helpful resource outliningwhen claims are processed andwhen the final due dates are for submitting a claim in the CNPweb. ● Don’t wait until it’s too late to complete your professional standards hours or have your staff complete theirs! Click here for a chart listing the professional standard hours requirements for each job category. ● Any mid-year hires (January 1 or after) do still need to complete their professional standards hours as well, however they only need to complete half of the training hours for their job category. Don’t forget to check the School Nutrition Programs Calendar for SY 2021-2022. This has replaced the previous Monthly Checklist. IDOE is continuously updating this calendar as training opportunities, events, and due dates are available. Click here to access this calendar. Stay in the know of any program changes, newmemos, upcoming reminders, and training registrations by reading the School Nutrition Program’s Weekly Newsletter. Click here to be added to the contact list.

BY ASHLEY HELLER SCHOOL NUTRITION SPECIALIST INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Meet the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Team As mentioned over the last several Food for Thought articles, IDOE has experienced many staffing changes within School and Community Nutrition over the last year. The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Team is no exception. Recently there were two new members hired for their team in addition to transitioning the roles of some of their teammembers to best suit the needs of their sponsors. Heather Stinson leads the CACFP team. Her team provides child nutrition program oversight for centers, ministries, and head start; at-risk afterschool programs; outside school hours programs; homeless and emergency shelters; adult daycare Rachel Reynolds is a program specialist located in the Indianapolis office. You might work with her if you have general inquiries, need help getting set up on the program, need to add new facilities to the program, or are requiring CNPweb assistance with CACFP. centers; and family daycare homes. Learn more about CACFP here . Not pictured is Karen Harmon , one of this team’s newest additions! Karen works alongside Rachel in the Indianapolis office.

CACFP Field Specialists

CACFPfield specialists operate similarly to school nutrition field specialists. They conduct reviews, provide technical assistance, help provide training, and are available for their sponsors to drop in whenever necessary. The map displays the different CACFP regions.

Kim Cobb is the field specialist for most of southern Indiana, spanning from Greenwood down to Evansville. You can see Kim’s region highlighted green on the map. Rachael Craft oversees the western region of Indiana and part of Marion County. Her area (highlighted in red) covers as far north as Knox in Starke County down to Sullivan, Indiana. Field Specialist Teressa Ledbetter ’s area is in the upper northwest region, including Crown Point, Gary, LaPorte, and South Bend. Teressa’s region is highlighted in blue.

Fern Bachner , nutrition specialist, develops training, works on the CACFP newsletter and website, specializes in Farm to Preschool/Early Childhood Education, and works on grant opportunities.

Unfortunately the last two field specialists do not have pictures yet, but Tasie Guenthner oversees the eastern Indiana region spanning from Anderson down to Vevay in Switzerland County. She also works with the eastern half of Marion County. Tasie’s region is highlighted in purple on the map. Katie Klaus is another new addition to the team! She covers the northeast region of Indiana, highlighted in gold on themap, fromHamilton County up to LaGrange. Do not hesitate to reach out to the CACFP team with any questions!