Served Digizine-School's Almost Out!

28 i Attention School Nutrition Managers! Take a quick 3-question survey to help ICN develop a resource for new or aspiring school nutrition managers! Click below to provide your feedback on ways that ICN can best develop Introduction to School Nutrition Leadership for Managers. This course will provide new or aspiring school nutrition managers the information and tools to succeed in their job. Click Here for Survey: https://bit.ly/3gXshGs The Institute of Child Nutrition (ICN), part of the School of Applied Sciences at The University of Mississippi, is the only federally funded national center dedicated to applied research, education and training, and technical assistance for child nutrition programs. The Institute’s mission is to provide information and services that promote the continuous improvement of child nutrition programs. ICN Website About ICN Summer is on the way! This Summer Meals Food Safety Training Guide is a resource you can use to train your staff on important food safety practices that help keep food safe for the children you are feeding. Site managers can use this guide as a reference with food safety reminders and best practices. Each page has quick information on different topics that assist you in training your staff. A list of additional resources available from the Institute of Child Nutrition can be found in the back of the training guide. The information presented in this training guide may or may not apply to all summer meals sites, so adapt it to your summer meals program as applicable. The three sections in the training guide promote key food safety practices essential to a successful summer meals site: Practicing good personal hygiene Checking and documenting food safety temperatures Proper cleaning and sanitizing These practices help ensure that the food children consume is safe and reduce the risk of a foodborne outbreak. A foodborne outbreak at a summer meals site could result in multiple children and staff becoming sick, bad publicity, and possibly cause the shutdown of the site. This free, downloadable training guide can be found at TheICN.org/FoodSafety. The Summer Meals Food Safety Training Guide, alongwith posters and tip cards, are available in English and Spanish. Printed copies of the posters and tip cards are available for order by email to helpdesk@theicn.org. https://vimeo.com/187362147 The ICN eLearning Portal also offers a 1-hour online course, Food Safety in Summer Meals. Completion of this course provides one CEU in USDA code 2620 and Key Area 2. Register and enroll in this course here: TheICN.org/eLearning eLearning Portal

the Policy Pulse with

Truth Time

Love Letters from Waiver Land

LunchAssist Jennifer McNeil, RDN, SNS

On April 20th, the USDA released waivers allowing all schools to serve free meals until June 30, 2022. Justice for George and Waivers for Kids on the same day. Yes, please! To summarize... Waiver #84 is actually just a summary of all of the new waivers. This is a nice touch from USDA. They’re obviously working on their communication skills, and it shows. Free Meals for All The most impactful waiver is #85. This allows all schools to operate the Seamless Summer Option during SY 21- 22 in lieu of the National School Lunch or Breakfast Programs. Schools can do so regardless of their Area Eligibility. Unfortunately, those currently operating SFSP will need to swap to SSO before their first day of SY 21-22. Worried about lower reimbursement rates with SSO? Keep reading. Money, Money, Money We’re most excited about Waiver $86. Yep, $.This provides SFSP reimbursement for SSO meals served during SY 21-22. Whew. This is a big relief for schools that will be swapping from SFSP to SSO. For the 16 states that provide state reimbursement, we reckon you’ll get

state $ on top of the SFSP rates, resulting in much higher reimbursement checks. Make. It. Rain. The Basics Non-Congregate Meal Service, Meal Time Requirements, and Parent Meal Pick Up waivers have all been extended, allowing schools to continue grab n’ go, home delivery, and other types of innovative meal service. What’s for Lunch? Two newmeal pattern waivers have been created for limited use during SY 21-22. In short, USDA expects folks to follow the meal patterns, except for the sodium requirements because let’s be honest, those are a bit aggressive. #realtalk Area Eligibility We’ve received a lot of questions about the Area Eligibility waivers - or lack thereof. The Area Eligibility Waiver #93 applies only to Afterschool Programs and Day Care Homes. That’s it. Waiver #85 allows all schools to operate SSO and pretty much eliminates the need for an SSO Area Eligibility Waiver. #efficiency What about SFSP? As far as we can tell, most flexibilities for the SFSP end on September 30, 2021. Remember, Waiver #85 mandates that

schools swap over to SSO for SY 21- 22 (or revert to NSLP/SBP). Community agencies offering SFSPmeals will most likely need to consider serving meals under CACFP and can do so regardless of their Area Eligibility thanks to Waiver #93. Audits Thanks to Waivers #94-96, site monitoring and Administrative Reviews will continue to be completed virtually. Are you scheduled for an Administrative Review during SY 21- 22? If yes, you definitely want to join the AR Boot Camp. Click here to learn more! Hungry for More? Register for the final two Community of Practice Calls on May 6th and June 3rd.

https://vimeo. com/544523093

Administrative Review Boot Camp Promotional Video - Take the next steps to get back to doing the things you really love to do.

Jennifer McNeil, RDN, SNS Founder, LunchAssist

Jennifer McNeil, RDN, SNS is a former award-winning Child Nutrition Director and the Founder of LunchAssist. She was raised in America’s Farm-to-Fork capital where she developed a passion and appreciation for local produce. She enjoys helping child nutrition directors cut through the administrative red tape so they can focus energy on serving the healthiest, freshest meals possible. LunchAssist PRO is the newest community in school nutrition where members have exclusive access to hundreds of school nutrition resources and over 12 hours of fun and empowering professional development specifically designed for this school year. See what all the buzz is all about by visiting www.lunchassist.org.