Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) Forms
RocketScan can do more than just meal applications. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a non-pricing meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas. CEP allows the nation’s highest poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students. Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
In CEP (Community Eligibility Provision) schools, income surveys are used as a primary method to gather household income data, which is crucial for determining eligibility for various state-funded educational programs, as CEP schools no longer collect traditional free and reduced-price meal applications due to the provision of free meals to all students; essentially, the income surveys replace the need for meal applications to ensure proper funding allocation based on student need.
RocketScan can help your district customize forms/surveys to collect this data and help your district increase it’s Identified Student Percentage (ISP). Schools with higher ISPs receive more reimbursements and more funding from federal programs. Our purpose is to collect household income information from families of CEP school students, even though all students receive free meals, as this data is needed to access additional state funding for educational programs like learning assistance programs.
With RocketScan you will be able to:
- Process Income Forms side-by-side with Free and Reduced Meal Applications seamlessly
- Track Income Forms separately from Free and Reduced Meal Applications
- Search Income Forms in a dedicated location
- Validate Income Forms in a separate queue from Free and Reduced Meal Applications
- Track time spent on Income Forms for Billing/Reimbursement from your Business office
- Enjoy the ease of processing Income Forms in a familiar and user friendly environment
- Capture the important information needed for Income Forms
Without this income data, CEP schools could potentially lose significant state funding for various educational programs!
Some Examples
Here are just some examples of CEP programs that we support through custom forms/surveys.
California LCFF
The state of California has passed a bill to address funding inequities and flexibility. Upgrading your RocketSCAN FMA will allow you to capture the Local Control Funding Formula forms and Alternate Income Surveys. Image One, with your guidance, will help you design the forms so that the information can be passed through the software and into your Point of Sale (POS) to make any determination that is needed.
E-Rate Household Income Surveys
RocketScan processes Socioeconomic Income Surveys to determine economic needs in your community. Even if your school is CEP, and not taking applications for Free and Reduced Lunches – RocketScan can determine your students identified student percentage getting you the Max E-Rate discount. We generate an eligibility report that can be imported into virtually any system as well as many desktop applications like Excel or Google sheets.