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Nutrition Programs

Monitoring Requirements



bullet 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.

bullet 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:

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.

bullet 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.