What is the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP?

In the world of child nutrition, the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is an effective program for increasing access to nourishing school meals. Here’s how it works, who benefits, and why you should consider contacting your lawmakers about it.

What is CEP?

Explaining CEP requires quite a few acronyms, but don’t let this alphabet soup intimidate you. Put simply, the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows schools to provide every student with breakfast and lunch without requiring households to submit school meal applications. CEP can be implemented at individual schools, but districts can often expand the number of students who benefit by grouping schools together.

How does CEP work?

CEP can be operated at an individual school, group of schools, or across an entire district—as long as at least 25% of the combined enrollment of students are categorically eligible to receive free school meals. This eligibility is called “direct certification.”

Schools meet this criteria based on student participation in federal benefits programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Because school nutrition staff have access to this data, they determine a school’s eligibility to participate in CEP without needing to collect household income through school meal applications. When at least 25% of students at a school are categorically eligible, that school qualifies for CEP. 

What’s more: School districts can extend CEP to students in schools that are not individually eligible by grouping them with schools that do qualify. As long as 25% of the combined student enrollment of all schools in the group are eligible, the entire group can operate CEP. 

What are the benefits of CEP?

Research shows that CEP has positive impacts on students, schools, and local economies, even for households without children.

For students, CEP leads to improved behavior, academic achievement, and higher attendance rates. Because every student can participate, students are never identified as qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, and students are never singled out for having school lunch debt. This reduces the stigma of free meals that students can experience, and increases student participation in school meals. 

CEP is excellent for schools, too. By removing the administrative burdens of collecting school meal applications, sorting students by fee category, and accounting for unpaid meal charges, school nutrition staff can focus on feeding kids. CEP increases school meal participation and often boosts revenue generation, benefiting school nutrition budgets.

Communities where this program is implemented benefit not only from improved health outcomes and greater food security, but also from a positive economic effect. CEP reduces the financial burden of school meals for students and families, providing significant economic relief. Individuals without children benefit, too, from its inflation-reducing effects, since CEP has been shown to reduce grocery prices.

Is my local school eligible for CEP?

You can learn which schools in your community are eligible for CEP, and which are participating, through FRAC’s CEP database.

In states with a School Meals for All (SMFA) policy, CEP is often what makes providing those school meals financially feasible. SMFA policies differ from state to state, but many states use CEP as a funding source for their school meal legislation. Changes to CEP that reduce eligibility would increase the financial burdens for states and likely disrupt access to nourishing meals all over the country for millions of students who need them.

How can I show my support for CEP? 

Lawmakers need to understand how this program impacts their constituents so they can make informed decisions. Sharing your perspective can make all the difference.

Right now, lawmakers are considering changes to CEP. Up to 12 million students could lose access to their school meals as a result. Take action now to quickly send your lawmakers a letter urging them to protect school meals.

You can also use our School Food Policy Action Map to learn about critical advocacy moments for food education, school meals, and other investments in child nutrition. Create your advocacy profile and we’ll let you know when lawmakers are making key decisions on school meals programs.