Direct Certification Procedures
Food and Nutrition Service
Memos on 2008-09 Direct Certification Requirements
This document contains the following current memorandums on procedures for schools to receive data for direct certification of students for free school meals.
Date of Memo |
Title of Memo |
Subject(s) |
July 2008 |
Procedures for obtaining and using direct certification data. | |
August 2008 |
Procedures for schools to upload enrollment data on kindergarten and other new students in order to obtain additional direct certification data. |
TO: Sponsors of School Nutrition Programs
FROM: Greg Hein, Supervisor
Food and Nutrition Service
DATE: July 29, 2008
SUBJECT: 2008-09 Direct Certification Data
Direct certification data identifies students in each school district who have been matched to either Food Stamp or Minnesota Family Investment Plan (MFIP) recipient data from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) and therefore are eligible for free school meals. Public schools are required to use direct certification data to approve students for free school meals without the family completing an Application for Educational Benefits. A nonpublic school food authority is required to use direct certification data if it has more than 10,000 students.
Direct certification data is specific to individual students. A household that has both directly certified students and some students who were not directly certified will have to complete an Application for Educational Benefits for the students who were not directly certified.
There is a change this year in the school food authority’s responsibility to review direct certification data – see section on “School District Review of Data” below.
Schedule for Direct Certification Downloads
The schedule for direct certification downloads has been revised in order to provide more data early in the school year. In addition to the July 2008 download, downloads will be posted in October 2008 (instead of February 2009) and in November 2008.
Downloading Direct Certification Data
After logging into the Cyber-Linked Interactive Child Nutrition System (CLiCS), click on the tab for “Direct Certif/Verifi” on the left-side menu. On the Direct Certification screen, there are links to download the data file and the PDF report. The direct certification data file and report are in the same format as previous years. Instructions for using the Direct Certification module are also available in the CLiCS User Manual, available from a link on the Direct Certification screen.
On the direct certification PDF report, the first bold line for each student is from the Minnesota Automated Reporting Student System (MARSS) data. The second and third lines on the PDF report show the MFIP/Food Stamp information that was matched to your student.
Public Schools under Joint Agreements
Direct certification data for public schools (such as charter schools) that participate in school meal programs under a joint agreement with a school district should appear on the direct certification screen of the district that administers the school meal programs.
School District Review of Data
Each student on the direct certification data has been matched to DHS Food Stamp/MFIP data based on name, birth date, and gender (matching methods 5 or 6). Social Security numbers are no longer available to be used in the direct certification matching process. Before notifying households about direct certification, a school district must review the direct certification data to determine if any students on the direct certification file may have been inaccurately matched, i.e., any student who appears to have matched to a different child from the DHS data who has the same or a similar name as the student.
To review direct certification data, compare the MARSS student data on the first line of the record (on PDF file) to the DHS data that matched to the student, which is on the second and third lines of the record. If the child’s name or the name and address of the DHS applicant (information on the 2nd and 3rd lines) appear to identify a child who is not your student (on the 1st line), then the student may not be considered to be directly certified.
Effective Date
Students are considered directly certified for free school meals as of the date that the report was generated. This date is shown in the lower left corner of the PDF copy of the report.
Notification Letter to Households
School districts must notify households with students who have been directly certified. Households with students certified in July 2008 should be notified prior to sending the Application for Educational Benefits to all households.
The direct certification Notification of Approval for Free School Meals letter is available from a link on the CLiCS Direct Certification screen. The school must enter the names of the individual students who have been directly certified. There may be children of the family who were not directly certified.
If the school district uses the name or address of the MFIP/Food Stamp applicant to send a notification letter, and that name or address is different than the school district’s records, the school district must follow these DHS rules:
- Envelopes must be marked “Do Not Forward.”
- Letters may not be sent to out-of-state addresses.
Data Privacy
The family’s participation in MFIP/Food Stamp programs and the resulting approval for free meals are private data.
If a parent or guardian disputes the direct certification of their child, the school district may not disclose any information concerning another person who is listed as the applicant on the DHS data. If upon review of the disputed direct certification the school district finds that it was in error, the school district may: (1) inform the parent or guardian that the meal eligibility status of the student will be corrected on school records and (2) explain that the direct certification of the student was based on private DHS data that cannot be shared and which may have been matched to school records in error.
Data for Nonpublic Schools
Direct certification data will be provided to a nonpublic school if the school uploads student enrollment data to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) in the required format. Data is uploaded to MDE via the “Upload Enrollment” feature in the CLiCS Direct Certification module. The format for uploading enrollment data to MDE will be provided within the next week.
Before uploading student enrollment data to MDE for the purpose of direct certification, a nonpublic school must determine that direct certification is an allowable use of its enrollment data that meets data privacy requirements.
Additional Data for New Students
A school district may upload enrollment data on kindergarten or other new students to receive direct certification data on those students. The format for uploading enrollment data to MDE will be provided within the next week.
If any you have any questions about this information, contact the Food and Nutrition Service at (651) 582-8526, (800) 366-8922 or fns@state.mn.us.
TO: Sponsors of School Nutrition Program
FROM: Greg Hein, Supervisor
Applications, Claims, & Commodities
Food and Nutrition Service
DATE: August 22, 2008
SUBJECT: Direct Certification Data for New Students
Direct certification data for kindergarten or other new students can be obtained by uploading enrollment data for those students to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). The enrollment data is uploaded to MDE via the New Student Upload feature under Direct Certification in the Cyber-Linked Interactive Child Nutrition System (CLiCS). Uploading of student enrollment data through CLiCS is optional.
The uploaded enrollment file must be a text file in the 2009 MARSS reporting format. Upload only the MARSS “B” file. After MDE has processed the school’s uploaded data, the school’s data file and PDF report showing the results will be available from the CLiCS Direct Certification screen.
Upload File Requirements:
1. File Format
The uploaded file must be a text file with the same format used for reporting of 2009 MARSS student data to MDE. The MARSS file format is available from the MARSS Manual on the MDE Website at http://education.state.mn.us/mdeprod/groups/Finance/documents/Manual/033650.pdf
The complete MARSS reporting format, accommodating all MARSS data elements, must be used for the uploaded file, even though the school is required to provide only those data elements listed below. Upload only the MARSS “B” file.
2. Required Data
For the file to be used for direct certification, the following data elements on the MARSS file format must have values entered by the school (other values may be left blank):
Student Number
District Number
District Type
School Number
Student Grade Level
Sex/Gender
Birth Date
Local Use Data (optional)
Student Last Name
Student First Name
3. Timing
MDE plans to run matches on uploaded data each weekend on files that schools have uploaded that week, and the results will be available each Monday. Enrollment uploads should be limited to one per week. If a school submits multiple uploads in one week, the last file uploaded will be used.
If you have any questions about this information, please contact Food and Nutrition Service – policy team at 651-582-8526, 800-366-8922, or e-mail to fns@state.mn.us.
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