The National School Lunch Act (NSLA) provides homeless, runaway, foster or migrant children with categorical eligibility for free meals provided through the child nutrition programs. In instances where sites or sponsors must take applications to determine eligibility, categorical eligibility eliminates the need for individuals who already meet income eligibility requirements in a specified program to submit additional income information for another program with similar requirements. In these situations, confirmation of eligibility is confirmed by obtaining documentation from the appropriate state or local agency, as determined by the State or local Migrant Education Program coordinator or as documented by an appropriate LEA official, such as the homeless liaison.
Because these categorical benefits are not extended to other students in the household, Wordware has an Other Source Categorical tool available which provides an easy way to apply the Other Source Categorical status to students who qualify. To use this tool, log in to the Wordware District Site>Free and Reduced tab>Other Source Categorical.
Detailed instructions for using the Other Source Categorical tool will appear; click the "X" in the upper right hand corner to close out of the instructions and proceed to the Other Source Categorical tool.
Enter the Effective Date. This is the date on the documentation you received from the state or local agency.
Begin typing the student name (either first name or last name) or the Student ID. Results will populate as you type. When you see the student, click on their name to add them to the list. If you have other students to certify, continue to search for them and add them to the list.
When all students are listed, enter the code for each student. Some code examples are MIGRANT, HOMELESS, RUNAWAY, FOS (foster) or HEADSTART. Type the code for each student in the State Code box.
For foster students, check the box in the Foster Child column.
When all students have a State Code entered and the appropriate check-boxes selected (if necessary) click the "Process" button.
You will be asked to confirm this action. Click the "OK" button.
Statistics will appear showing the number of students who were successfully updated.
The student's new statuses will now be reflected in the Family Dashboard, as seen in the two examples shown here:
A log of the Other Source Categorical tool runs can be found in the Wordware District Site>Free and Reduced tab>Logs.
All Other Source Categorical runs are logged in chronological order.
Clicking on a log will give you more details about that particular Other Source Categorical run. This report can be opened in the browser or downloaded in CSV.
A sample log is shown here:
Next, go to the District Site>Free and Reduced tab>Timeline:
Click on the Other Source Categorical link to print your letter:
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: When entering codes, it is important that you enter them the same way for the entire year. Codes are case sensitive. For example, the software will consider codes of MGRNT, migrant and MIGRANT to be three different codes and they will be counted separately in your reports. We recommend entering them exactly as they are on your state file to avoid this issue.
You may also find this article helpful:
https://help.wordwareinc.com/how-do-i-get-a-list-of-students-who-are-approved-via-other-source-categorical-homeless-migrant-foster-runaway