Monitoring Requirements
Coordinated Review Effort (CRE)
The Illinois State Board of Education must conduct administrative
reviews as prescribed by the USDA. The administrative review
is a comprehensive on-site evaluation of all local education
agencies participating in the National School Lunch Program.
Administrative reviews of all local education agencies are
conducted, at a minimum, once every five years.
The review process will include the evaluation of the critical
areas with two performance standards which serve as a measure
of compliance with program regulations and the general areas
of the review. During the review process, if there are problems
in the critical areas, an over-claim may be assessed dependent
on the severity of the problem.
The critical areas include:
Performance Standard 1
All free, reduced-price and paid lunches claimed for reimbursement
are served only to children eligible for free, reduced-price,
and paid lunches, respectively; and counted, recorded, consolidated,
and reported through a system which consistently yields
correct claims.
The state agency must determine that the free and reduced-price
eligibility determinations are correct. In addition, the
state agency must determine that for each day of operation
for the review period, the number of free, reduced-price,
and paid lunches served to children eligible for free, reduced-price
and paid lunches respectively, in those schools for the
review period. The state agency must determine that the
lunch counting system accurately counts, records, consolidates,
and reports the reimbursable meals by type.
Performance Standard 2
Lunches claimed for reimbursement within the local education agency contain food items/components as required by the
performance standard.
General Areas
In addition to critical areas, there are general areas of
program compliance that will be reviewed. There is no financial
assessment for a problem in a general area. The general areas
include:
- Verification
- Daily Meal Edit Checks
- Onsite Review Process
- Overt Identification of Free and Reduced-Price Meal Recipients
- Offer versus Serve
- Civil Rights
- Food Quantities and Serving Sizes
- Procurement
- Sanitation
Follow-up reviews may be conducted if there is a critical
area violation in excess of the review threshold.
A written report will be mailed to the local education agency
detailing the review findings, corrective actions needed,
and deadlines for the corrective actions, and any financial
assessment. The local education agency must then respond to
the review findings with how and when the corrective actions
were implemented. Corrective actions must be applied to all
schools in the local education agency.
School Meal Initiative Review (SMI)
The state agency must evaluate compliance, over a school
week, with the nutrition standards. At a minimum, these evaluations
shall be conducted once every five years and may be conducted
at the same time a local education agency is scheduled for
an administrative review. These evaluations may also be conducted
with technical assistance visits, other reviews, or separately.
The type of evaluation conducted will depend on the menu planning
approach chosen by the local education agency.
NuMenus. The state agency will assess the nutrient analysis
for the last completed school week prior to the review period
to determine if the local education agency is applying the
methodology as described in the regulations. Part of this
assessment shall be an independent review of the menus and
production records to determine if they correspond to the
nutrient analysis conducted by the local education agency and
if the menu, as offered over a school week, corresponds to
the nutrition standards and the appropriate nutrient and calorie
levels.
Food Based. The state agency shall conduct nutrient analysis
on the menu served during the review period to determine if
the nutrition standards are met.
If the menu for the school week fails to comply with the
nutrient standards, the local education agency must develop
with the assistance and concurrence of the state agency a
corrective action plan designed to rectify those deficiencies.
If the local education agency fails to meet the terms of the
corrective action plan, the state agency must determine if
the LEA is working in good faith towards compliance and if
so may renegotiate the plan. If the LEA refuses, then the
state agency must determine if a disallowance of reimbursement
funds is warranted.
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