Under the National School Lunch Program, students from lower-income households can get free or reduced-price meals. Schools report how many students are eligible, and NCES publishes the counts.
Direct certification
Many students qualify automatically, without an application, because their family takes part in programs such as SNAP or TANF, or because the student is in foster care or experiencing homelessness. This is called direct certification.
The Community Eligibility Provision
The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) lets schools in high-poverty areas serve free breakfast and lunch to every student, with no applications. Because CEP schools no longer collect household forms, their free lunch counts often reflect direct certification or total enrollment instead.
Important: Schools in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) serve free meals to all students, so their free lunch counts often reflect direct certification or total enrollment. Free and reduced lunch shares are not comparable between CEP and non-CEP schools.
How we use these numbers
We show free lunch, reduced-price lunch and direct certification counts on school pages, with a "CEP school" badge where it applies. We never rank schools or districts by free and reduced lunch share, because the numbers are not measured the same way everywhere.
Sources
Written by the BCER.org editorial team.