1. Community Eligibility Provision and Title I
Jesse Fry
Regional Coordinator, PDE Division of Federal Programs

2. Community Eligibility Provision
What is it?
What impact does it have on Title I ranking, School Wide Authority, and Nonpublic services?
What do I need to know if my LEA participates in CEP and/or my district works with nonpublic schools that participate in CEP?

3. Community Eligibility Provision
The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a relatively new program administered by the Division of Food and Nutrition within the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Eligible School Districts, Charter Schools, and Nonpublic Schools would choose to participate in order to maximize federal food subsidy.

4. Community Eligibility Provision
For more information about the actual program please contact the Division of Food and Nutrition at and/or
The following link is also useful:

5. Community Eligibility Provision
What impacts does CEP have on Title I?
#1. Building Ranking.
#2. School Wide eligibility.
#3. Nonpublic Equitable Share.

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Please note: participation in CEP will not have an impact on the Title I allocation that is derived for a district or charter school.
Title I allocations at the LEA level have always been Census Bureau based, not Free and Reduced Lunch count and/or CEP participant based.

7. Community Eligibility Provision
The CEP program began in Pennsylvania during the school year.
Low-income data from the previous school year is used to determine how Title I funds can be distributed within a LEA. Accurate data is vital because which buildings can receive Title I services and at what dollar amount is determined via this process.

8. Community Eligibility Provision
Please note: for CEP buildings, data from the original food subsidy eligibility process can be used for more than one year.
However, there is no disincentive to update this data annually as the Division of Food and Nutrition allows their subsidy yield to be based upon the year with the highest poverty count.

9. Community Eligibility Provision
Within district building ranking procedures have not changed. There is a new HS service option per ESSA, but this has no material effect regarding CEP extrapolations.
All new CEP guidance pertaining to school building ranking is being applied to existing guidance on the subject.
Please reference

10. Community Eligibility Provision
There are five allowable poverty measures:
#1. Census data.
#2. Free and Reduced lunch data.
#3. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) data.
#4. Medicaid.
#5. A composite of the above measures.

11. Community Eligibility Provision
Most LEAs in the state use Free and Reduced Lunch data.
If CEP was instituted for the first time during the school year there is likely no Free and Reduced lunch count from participating buildings.
This lack of data may exist across all buildings within a LEA or only at certain buildings within a LEA.

12. Community Eligibility Provision
LEAs that have buildings eligible for and participating in CEP would have Direct Certification (DC) data.
DC data has been collected for years and is a subset of the larger combined Free and Reduced Count.
This is data that is collected “in house” and does not require a survey. SEE HANDOUT.

13. Community Eligibility Provision
Direct Certification students “are students approved for free meals who are not subject to verification. This definition includes students directly certified through SNAP, TANF, or Medicaid…in other words any students who are certified through means other than a household application.”

14. Community Eligibility Provision
USDE studies have found that for every ten students directly certified another six would be identified via the household application/survey process.
A multiplier of 1.6 is thus used for the actual food subsidy itself as well as for Title I purposes to get Free and Reduced “like” figures.

15. Community Eligibility Provision
The multiplier may vary from 1.3 to 1.6, however USDE has indicated that any shift from 1.6 is unlikely and that advanced notice would occur if for any reason it would.
It should be noted that the 1.6 multiplier is purely at the individual building level for Title I purposes. This is opposed to possible grouping that can occur for the food subsidy itself.

16. Community Eligibility Provision
Example: Building A is CEP and Building B is non-CEP.
Building A enrollment is DC data at this building is 80. This number is multiplied 1.6 to get a Free and Reduced “like” figure of 128.
Building B enrollment is Free and Reduced lunch data at this building is 60.

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Building A will have an adjusted poverty percentage of 85.33%. The per pupil dollar amount will be applied to the “adjusted” head count of 128, not the DC count of 80.
Building B will have a natural poverty percentage of 42.85%. The per pupil dollar amount will be applied to the raw head count of 60.

18. Community Eligibility Provision
Please note, in many instances the multiplier will push the adjusted percentage and head count above 100%. When this happens the percentage will cap at 100% and the head count will cap at the total building enrollment figure.
When more than one building multiplies above 100% the pre-multiplier DC number is referenced to determine the de facto poverty ranking.

19. Community Eligibility Provision
Another ranking method would entail only using the DC number, without multiplying it, at all LEA buildings, regardless of whether a building was CEP or not.
In this case USDE has allowed the DC data to be treated like raw TANF or Medicaid data – both allowable poverty measures.

20. Community Eligibility Provision
Schoolwide programmatic authority can be established at the building level statutorily at 40% low-income and via a waiver at 30% low-income. Per ESSA these thresholds will lower.
The measures used for ranking buildings and determining Schoolwide eligibility can differ, though in most case LEAs use the same poverty source.

21. Community Eligibility Provision
Why would a LEA want to use different data sources for ranking and schoolwide establishment?
Example: a LEA may choose to use pre-multiplier figures to rank in order to avoid the 75% serving rule. This would inherently pull many building below the schoolwide eligibility threshold. Because of this the multiplier is applied for schoolwide eligibility purposes.

22. Community Eligibility Provision
Example continued: in other words, the non-multiplied numbers used for ranking would be a TANF-like poverty measure. The multiplied numbers used for school wide eligibility would be a Free and Reduced-like poverty measure.
The ability to use different poverty measures for this reason has always existed, but many LEAs are beginning to re-examine such possibilities after reviewing CEP guidance.

23. Community Eligibility Provision
How do nonpublic schools reconcile numbers with a district that has CEP schools?
How do districts without CEP schools reconcile numbers with a CEP nonpublic school?
In both cases we are looking to do the same thing that happened within a district – the establishment of a common poverty measure.

24. Community Eligibility Provision
Nonpublic equitable share guidance from 2003 has not changed.
Once again, many LEAs are re-examining their nonpublic consultation process after familiarizing themselves with CEP guidance, but nothing within the actual guidance is differing from what was proclaimed in 2003.
LEAs must consult with private school officials and use one of the following measures:

25. Community Eligibility Provision
(1) Using the same measure as used by the LEA to count public school students.
(2) Using comparable poverty data from a survey of private school families and extrapolating the results from a representative sample if complete actual data are unavailable.

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(3) Using comparable poverty data from a different source.
(4) Applying the low-income percentage of each participating public school attendance area to the number of private school students who reside in each area.

27. Community Eligibility Provision
(5) Using an equated measure of low income correlated with the measure of low-income used to count public school students.
Detailed information and guidance regarding these sources can be accessed at

28. Community Eligibility Provision
In most cases the first measure – using the same poverty measure – will be applied.
This is the default measure and if “like” data is available, then options #2 through #5 should not be used.
This does not mean that when a LEA has CEP and a nonpublic school does not (or vice versa) that the same poverty measure is not available.

29. Community Eligibility Provision
Example #1: The district has CEP buildings but the nonpublic school does not.
The district will likely be multiplying baseline DC data by 1.6 in order to get it to look Free and Reduced-like.
The nonpublic school will have Free and Reduced eligibility data (or like data) just as they always have.
The use of the “same poverty measure” has been established between the LEA and the nonpublic entity in the same manner as it had been within the LEA itself.

30. Community Eligibility Provision
Example #1 continued: The district has CEP buildings but the nonpublic school does not.
The district is allowed to use baseline DC, without multiplier, as a ranking and equitable share measure.
The nonpublic school should also have DC data readily available even if not eligible and/or participating in CEP.
The use of the “same poverty measure” has been established.

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Example #2: The district is not CEP but the nonpublic school is CEP.
The district will likely be collecting Free and Reduced data as it always has.
The nonpublic school will now have only DC data. This data will be multiplied by 1.6 and provided to the LEA to help determine equitable share.
The use of the “same poverty measure” has been established.

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Example #2 continued: The district is not CEP but the nonpublic school is CEP.
Though the district will be collecting Free and Reduced Lunch data as they always have, they may use only DC baseline data for ranking and equitable share purposes if they wish.
The nonpublic school will also be using only DC data by virtue of participating in CEP. The use of the “same poverty measure” has been established.

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Questions?
Please feel free to contact me at and/or