Community Eligibility Provision

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows eligible schools to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of income. CEP has been shown to increase participation in school meals, and supports a whole child approach to learning.

Provision 2 and Non-Pricing Models

School districts have several school meal funding options to implement free school meals for all students, including the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), Provision 2, and locally funded universal free meals (“non-pricing”). 

Every student deserves access to healthy food every day, and offering students meals at no cost to them is a great way to make that happen.

Provision 2 of the National School Lunch Act enables any school to provide free meals to students. There are no eligibility requirements under Provision 2 as there are with CEP, and also unlike CEP, you can choose to offer universal breakfast and/or lunch. 

How it works. Provision 2 schools distribute and collect school meals applications in year 1, or the "base year," of the four-year cycle. In this base year, Provision 2 schools serve free meals to all students but count and claim meals by fee category. In years two-four, schools receive reimbursement based on the percentage of meals served in each fee category during the base year and meals are served at no cost to all students.

When might Provision 2 be a better option than CEP? When a school's free and reduced-price student percentage is significantly greater than a school's ISP, Provision 2 may yield a higher financial return than CEP. This phenomenon is more common in areas where there is stigma associated with receiving public benefits like SNAP, or fear of participating in programs like SNAP, often out of fears for negative impacts on immigration status. In these situations, a school's base year percentages for reimbursement at the free, reduced-price, and paid categories may yield a greater financial return than the reimbursement rates set by the school's comparatively lower ISP. 

For example, if a school has an ISP of 50%, it will receive 80% of the meals it serves at the free rate and 20% at the paid rate under CEP. However, if that same school's average daily participation in school lunch is 78%, 15%, and 7% for participation in free, reduced-price, and paid categories, respectively, it may be more financially viable to operate Provision 2. When considering the reimbursement generated by the 15% of participants in the reduced-price category, 93% of the meals served at this school would be reimbursed at or near the highest reimbursement rate, while only 7% will be reimbursed at the significantly lower "paid" rate. Compared with 20% of meals being reimbursed at the "paid" rate under CEP, Provision 2 may be a better option for this school.

Non-pricing. Non-pricing is another funding option for free school meals for all students where schools have financial support from the local government, school board, or private sources. Meals are served free to all students, and meals are counted and claimed by fee category (i.e., free, reduced, and paid). The difference between federal reimbursement and program costs would have to come from non-federal funding.

For a more in-depth comparison chart, view No Kid Hungry’s resource Providing Universal Free School Meals. You can also check out the Day 1 video from CEP Week to learn about the differences between and considerations for CEP, Provision 2, and traditional counting and claiming.