JULY 2021
NDDPI Child Nutrition and Food Distribution logo
School Nutrition Program Updates
Reimbursement Rates for SSO in SY 21-22
These rates have been set finally so that you may put budgets together for the Food service account, as noted above.
Please note that these rates are for July 2021 through December 2021. New rates will be effective in January 2022 through June 2022 which most likely will be a bit higher. 

Meal Pricing for School Year 21-22:
Schools can serve student meals FREE during the School Year 21-22 if the school enrolls in the Seamless Summer Option (SSO) for that year! 
 
The question that many schools are asking though is if adult meals are free next year. The answer to that is ‘NO’ Adult meals cannot be paid for through the federal reimbursement, so they are not free. As Director Schloer noted in our last Teams meeting, reimbursement is coming from your tax dollars, and you are not going to be happy paying for another adult’s meal.
 
Adult meal prices must be set using a formula based on how your school prices student lunches. 
 
  • For those school districts that have tiered pricing for students (free, reduce priced and paid), the adult meal price is set by adding the value of commodities to the highest paid student price for lunch. You may use the last set student meal pricing OR the resulting price after running the PLE tool – see below.
 
  • For non-pricing schools, the amount of reimbursement received for a free meal plus the value of commodities is used for the adult meal price. You may use the free reimbursement amount for the National School Lunch Program ($3.53) and School Breakfast Program ($2.26) rather than the free reimbursement rate of the Seamless Summer Option for SY 21-22 listed above. The calculations then would be for an adult lunch: $3.53 + $.37 = $3.90. There is no commodity value to add to the breakfast pricing, so adult breakfasts must be at or above $2.26.
 
We have not received the value of commodities for this year, yet, but expect it soon. Last year’s rate was $.37, and we would expect that number to be a few cents higher in case you need to adjust your adult meal prices for the coming school year at the next school board meeting. 
 
Are you wondering about the SY 21-22 PLE tool?
 
Yes! you say
..well the PLE Tool (Paid Lunch Equity spreadsheet) that is mandated to be filled out every year for school district’s to base the paid student lunch price on its results has been released. There is good news and bad news with this release:
 
Good news – any school district that is planning on operating the SSO program during SY 21-22 does not have to follow PLE requirements. Also, those school districts that had a zero OR positive balance in the Food service: 05 Account is exempt from the PLE pricing requirements. These two memos mean that 99.9% of the school districts in North Dakota do not need to raise student school meal prices for the school year. Since student meals are all free (price of $0.00), this would only affect the calculation for your adult meal pricing.
 
Bad news – these two memos only exempt school districts from the results of the PLE tool. They do not exempt each school district from filling out and running the tool – that annual mandate mentioned above. 
The tool is located HERE. (or by clicking the image below!)
Also please note that when completing the PLE tool for SY 21-22, if SFAs do not have pricing/sales data from October 2020, they can use October 2019 pricing/sales data. Filling this tool out now will help you fill the PLE tool out in future years as data used in the spreadsheet is pulled forward from the last year. Email dpicnfd@nd.gov if you need your October 19 data.
 
But there is more good news – Child Nutrition Waiver #97 waives 7 CFR 210.18(h)(1)(ii) that requires us to review compliance with the requirements for pricing paid lunches. In other words, we will not be checking for the PLE tool during this year’s administrative reviews.
 
Bottom line for this discussion: yes, you should be in the habit of running a PLE tool every year and documenting that it was done in your recordkeeping that is saved for 3 years plus the year you are in, but we will not be checking for it this year. 
FROM Mountain Plains Regional USDA office email on 6/23/2021:
 
PLE Tool Released for SY 21-22(Paid Lunch Equity spreadsheet)
 
As a reminder, on May 14, 2021 we issued SP 11 CACFP10 SFSP06-2021 - Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021: Effect on Child Nutrition Programs- REVISED (https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/sp11-cacfp10-sfsp06-2021) notifying States that as required by the 2021 Appropriations Act, any SFA with a positive or zero balance in its nonprofit school food service account as of December 31, 2020, is exempt from PLE pricing requirements found at 7 CFR 210.14(e) for school year (SY) 2021-22.
 
SFAs operating SSO only during SY 21-22 do not need to follow PLE requirements for SY 21-22 per Child Nutrition Waiver #97 - Nationwide Waiver to Provide Flexibility for School Meal Programs Administrative Reviews of School Food Authorities Operating Only the Seamless Summer Option in School Year (SY) 2021-2022 https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/child-nutrition-response-97.
North Dakota School Nutrition Professionals Receiving National Recognition!
  • Allison Grabow (Child Nutrition Manager, Will-Moore Elementary, Bismarck Public Schools) is the recipient of the State “Manager of the Year” as well as being the Regional Winner for the Midwest Region! Congratulations Allison!
  • Emily Karel (Child Nutrition Director, Grand Forks Public Schools) was recognized with the President’s Award of Service, as she served as the State President. Congratulations Emily!
  • North Dakota SNA was recognized with the “Membership Goal Award”
SNA extends this “Bravo!” feature of award winners and encourages joining in the celebration. This publication further establishes the dedication, innovation, and passion that all of YOU, as school nutrition professionals have. We at NDDPI CNFD are thankful that we get to work so closely with all of you throughout the great state of North Dakota. Continue to take pride in the meaningful service of providing nourishment to our state’s youth!
To view the entire “Bravo!” feature, click HERE:bravo-2021.pdf (schoolnutrition.org)
Personal Purchasing
The food service operation should be operated in a businesslike manner. The money received as reimbursement for these programs is public tax money. Therefore, food service employees are subject to scrutiny from taxpayers.
 
Sponsors are discouraged from allowing employees to purchase food or supplies for personal use from school vendors since:

  1. It could be unfair competition. The tax paying grocer in your community would look at it this way.
  2. It could be considered a special benefit. All the taxpayers in your community do not have this benefit.
  3. It could appear to be theft from the school. Someone who sees such purchases leaving the school does not know that the items were not paid for by the school.
  4. School personnel should not be spending work time checking out special food with the food salesman, tracking payment for purchases and sorting out food purchases. 
  5. Food service personnel should be the only ones going in and out of the freezer, not teachers or other staff picking up their orders after school.
Are you hiring a New Kitchen Manager?
Training is available!
There is still room in the New Kitchen Manager training scheduled in Bismarck on July 21st. The link for registration on Eventbrite is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-school-kitchen-manager-training-registration-153670634003 This class will begin at 9 a.m. (registration will start at 8:30 a.m.) and the training portion will be over by noon. Those interested in individual help can bring production books and proposed menus for the upcoming school year to work with a child nutrition specialist further in the afternoon.

ï»żHiring Considerations:
When a new kitchen manager is needed, there may or may not be hiring standards involved as required by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. If the kitchen manager is just overseeing the kitchen at one site, then sanitation certification is needed.
If the new kitchen manager is serving in the role of the school district’s ‘food service director’ or ‘school nutrition program coordinator’ where he/she will oversee all or most of the day-to-day operation of the school district’s school meal programs, then hiring standards apply. These include having some background with education and/or experience in commercial food service along with the food safety and sanitation certification (completed within the last 5 years or can be obtained within the first 30 days of hire).
Remember, someone must be designated as the food service director in a school district. If this is not a kitchen manager, then the district’s designee must complete the food safety and sanitation certification.
If the district level program responsibilities are divided among several positions, it may be tough to decide who should be named the District Food Service Director. USDA has adopted a list of the 10 key areas of responsibilities from the Institute of Child Nutrition’s “Orientation to School Nutrition Management” to help a district figure out who should be wearing the food service director hat. The 10 key areas are listed in the table below. Put the person and/or department responsible for the food service activity next to each of the key areas. When you are done, the person who has their name by the most categories will be your district’s food service director:
For in-depth information on these key information areas, The Institute of Child Nutrition has their resources for the “Orientation to School Nutrition Management” on their website at: Orientation to School Nutrition Management - Institute of Child Nutrition (theicn.org)
Once the school district has figured out who has the responsibility for their school nutrition programs, then the next time a new food service director is hired, the professional standards must be used. For school districts with student enrollment of 2,499 or less, the minimum education/experience standard is a bachelor’s degree or High school diploma/GED with 3 years of relevant experience. We do have an optional waiver for school districts with 2,500 or less students that waives the 3 years of experience since many rural areas to have problems finding candidates. Ideally though, an applicant should have some paid or unpaid food service experience to function in the school kitchen.
The Professional Standard Rule Hiring Waiver can be found here:
Click on the image to the right to download the Professional Standard Rule Hiring Waiver. You can use this to request for NDDPI Approval of a Food Service Director Candidate who meets Educational Standards, but has less than the required three years Relevant Experience. 
Food Safety and Sanitation Training

  • Those that do not want to sit for 8 hours in a classroom can do a self-paced, online version for the same certification. Enroll in ‘Food Safety in Schools’ here: ICN E-learning (docebosaas.com)
Please send a copy of the completed certificate to dpicnfd@nd.gov so we can complete our required recordkeeping for USDA.
Back to School Workshops (BTSW) Updates
A tiny number of seats are still available at the Child Nutrition and Food Distribution Back to School Workshops scheduled at the end of July and beginning of August. If you have not registered, please do so soon to save your seat at the event. As a reminder, those who are not registered will not be able to participate.
We have a firm ‘Sorry, no squeezing’ number because of social distancing and vendor products this year.

At this writing, there no seats available in Fargo or Minot. The August 4th date in Bismarck has a couple tickets available and there are 12 seats for the new August 2nd date in Bismarck.

The second date that was added in Bismarck will feature the same speakers, but there will be no commodity processed food items shown that day. The production record books along with assorted other resources to take back to the kitchen will be available. The link to register for Bismarck, August 2nd is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-bismarck-august-2-btsw-0132-tickets-159708677955

ï»ż**Registration with Credit Card Only**
NOTE! We will not accept any Walk-Ins or Day of Registrations.
ï»żYou must PRE-Register!

If you do not have a ticket to attend one of the workshops, do not worry!
The sessions will be recorded for future viewing pleasure. We will get the links for those recordings out as soon as they are available. 
Life of Serving Meals after USDA Waivers
{Meal Pattern for 2021-22 School Year}
BACK TO NSLP!
In the 2021-2022 school year, we will be back to following the NSLP/SBP Meal Pattern, while on SSO (Seamless Summer Option). This means back to all grains being whole grain rich & vegetable subgroups (amid other meal pattern requirements!). The NSLP/SBP meal pattern emphasizes healthy eating, with a focus on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and sensible calorie levels. Although you may hear about meal pattern flexibility waivers for milk, whole grains, and sodium for this 21-22 school year – these are not blanket waivers, instead they are to be only used if needed and requested on a case-by case basis. Each request must be submitted to NDDPI individually and will be granted on a case-by-case basis. (For more information, check out our recent webinar for more information as well as more information to come when filling out your program agreement in NDFoods.)
*Schools can follow the meal pattern flexibilities for sodium flexibilities, as this is related to schools likely still relying on pre-packaged, grab-and-go foods to provide a safe meal service.
Let’s focus on a recap of WHOLE GRAINS & VEGGIE SUBGROUPS.
“HELP! I forgot how to identify WHOLE GRAINS & VEGGIE SUBGROUPS! AHH!”
If this is the first thought that comes to mind – you are in luck. Here are some quick tips for identifying whole grains, as well as reminders for vegetable subgroups and printable resources to refresh you on these topics. Keep in mind, this is not all-inclusive education newsletter article, the links provided for printable resources and information do provide an in-depth informative offering!!
Remind me what does “all grains must be whole grain rich” mean?
All Grains must meet Whole Grain-Rich criteria – either by being:
  • 100% Whole Grain or a
  • Whole Grain Rich (WGR) product:
  • containing, 100% whole grains or a
  • blend of whole grain flour/meal and enriched flour/meal of which is at least 50%, the remaining 50 % or less of grains, if any must be enriched.
How do I check my food items to make sure my item is Whole Grain-Rich?
Below is a step-by-step guide from the Food Buying Guide on deciphering whole grains and whole grain-rich food items. Other helpful resources include:
What about the Veggie Subgroups?
Vegetables can be offered in their: fresh, frozen, or canned form to meet the vegetable requirements. All vegetables are credited based on their volume as served
except leafy greens count for œ (1 cup leafy greens = œ cup vegetable). Vegetable offerings at lunch over the course of the week must include the following subgroups, using the quantities listed in the chart attached.
Dark Green
o  Such as: bok choy, broccoli, dark green leafy lettuce, kale, romaine lettuce, spinach
Red-Orange
o  Such as: squash, carrots, pumpkin, tomatoes, tomato juice, sweet potato, red and orange peppers
Beans and Peas (Lentils)
o  Such as: black beans, black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, lentils, pinto beans, soybeans, split peas
Starchy Vegetables
o  Such as: corn, green peas, lima beans, white potatoes, jicama
Other Vegetables
o  Such as: artichokes, asparagus, avocado, beets, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, green beans, green peppers, iceberg lettuce, mushrooms, onions, wax beans, zucchini.
Additional Vegetables
o  Mixed vegetables (of unknown amounts of each vegetable)

For more information about each vegetable and how it credits to your menu, visit the USDA Food Buying Guide or for additional vegetable varieties, check out USDA MyPlate!
If you have any questions about the meal pattern requirements, or a potential need to submit a waiver – please reach out to our office at dpicnfd@nd.gov! 
Triennial Assessment of the Local Wellness Policy - Did you get yours done?
If you did take the opportunity to get your triennial assessment of the local wellness policy done by June 30th of this year (as noted in the USDA waiver COVID-19: Child Nutrition Response #18) and publicly posted, you earn our kudos and gold stars for your program.

If you did not quite get it done, you are in luck – “On June 11, 2021, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) issued the Nationwide Waiver of Local School Wellness Policy Triennial Assessments in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast to provide LEAs with additional time to focus on wellness activities. The new deadline to complete a triennial is June 30, 2022. The second triennial assessment would be due by June 30, 2025.” Click here to read the entire waiver: Nationwide Waiver of Local School Wellness Policy Triennial Assessments in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs | USDA-FNS
Contact our office for more information on Local Wellness Policies or the triennial assessment of them.
HOT Kitchen? Tips to cool off.
School districts do not prioritize good temperature control in their school kitchens. Most cooks do not complain about the oven heat in the winter but with more schools serving summer meals and our intense heat early this year, kitchen staff are looking for ways to stay a little cooler.
‘Foodservice Director’ magazine interviewed some top chefs on how they stay cool in their ‘inferno’ kitchens. These ideas may be helpful for North Dakota school kitchens to consider. Patricia Cobe wrote “Cool ways to beat the heat in a sweltering foodservice kitchen” for the June 24, 2021, edition with the following tips:
·        Staying hydrated was a top way to keep cool. Some chefs swear by drinking iced coffee first thing in the morning; others opted for cold buttermilk or fruit/vegetable infused water such as cucumber or coconut. Consuming water-rich fruits and vegetables like watermelon and strawberries can also replenish the body’s H2O.
·        Chilling bandanas and hats, either dry or wet was proposed by some. One suggested shaving your head to help with cooling. Another also mentioned an ingenious pet collar available at Walmart that has an ice pack and closes with Velcro. The chef bought one for each of the kitchen staff at a cost of $5 each.
·        Another submission for those that have a dress code of full-length pants in the kitchen is to roll the pants up, just enough to provide space between the bottom of the pants and the top of the shoes so air can flow. This chef also recommended floor fans but to keep them low, so they don’t cool the food or blow dust around.
·        Make sure to take extra breaks to let your body cool down.
·        Finally, all chefs agree that coolers and freezers are extremely organized and clean during heat waves. All staff are willing volunteers to put away deliveries. One idea was a little too cool for me though – take off your shoes and walk around in the cooler.
Please take care of yourself, in and out of the kitchen during these periods of heat waves.
Thank you again for all you do for your community’s children.
Professional Development Opportunities
July 1st starts the annual requirement for professional development hours needed by all school nutrition staff. As a reminder, these are the number of hours needed during the year for each position:
First opportunity of the year to fill these hours:

Culinary Institute of Child Nutrition will be hosting “Menu Strategies for Special Diets and Allergens”
Thursday, July 1, 2021 from 2 to 3 p.m. (Central time). 
Featured speakers will be from USDA-FNS Food distribution to help with ideas to use your USDA Food commodities, the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) program and the menu planner from Laveen School District in Arizona. If you have students with allergies or need special diets, this will be a helpful discussion to give you menu ideas for the new school year. Register here for the Zoom meeting: ICN E-learning (docebosaas.com)

Are you excited for SNA’s ANC!?! July 12-15th, 2021 Schedule (schoolnutrition.org)
ANC (Annual National Conference of the School Nutrition Association) is billed as the ‘premier annual event for school nutrition’ featuring outstanding education session from the fundamentals of K12 school foodservice to cutting-edge ideas in the school nutrition segment. This year’s ANC is again virtual so no need to book airplanes or hotel rooms. Take in all the learning sessions in the form of Learning Bursts and Culinary Demos, motivational speakers during the General sessions, and the national vendor show from the comfort of your office chair OR get your staff together on someone’s patio and enjoy the sessions with comradery and beverages. Early bird registration rates are done now but registration is still open: Registration (schoolnutrition.org) We hope to ‘see’ you there.

Track your Professional Development Hours
As you are planning professional development for the upcoming school year for you and the rest of the school nutrition staff, remember the Back-to-School Workshop coming up. We will have 6 hours of professional development from that event. There is a nice tracking form in the front of the Production Record book for Lunch.

Remember Annual Civil Rights Training
Also, as stated above, remember to get your SY 21-22 Civil Rights training done and documented! There is a two-page read-through training in the front of the production books for either Lunch or After School Snack. For a more thorough read-through training, check out USDA-FNS’s “Civil Rights Training for School Meals”: Civil Rights Training: Review of FNS Instruction 113-1 (azureedge.net)
Cranberries in the Classroom or Lunchroom
Most schools use dried cranberries as a source of fruit to students for either breakfast, lunch, or snack time
Want to offer some fun, free activity sheets that support the offering of cranberries? Maybe if you do a summer picnic lunch, you print some of these out and have as an insert or if you serve in person summer meals, you have a stack available (with a pen or marker too) for students to take and work on as they eat lunch!
Check out Cranberries In The Classroom | Ocean SprayÂź for various activities such as these:
Looking to Print Our Newsletter?
We have heard that some schools would like the option of printing the newsletter so that they can better share with other staff members on their team. Below are a few tips.

NOTE: When you print, you are unable to see all the links to our resources, so be sure to have a computer available for these viewing. You can forward the link for the newsletter to any of your staff members, so be sure to utilize that opportunity so they are able to view the newsletter in its entirety! 
Did you miss a past newsletter?
If so, our website has been updated to now include them
ï»ż(June 2020-June 2021 are posted)! Check it out here:
Smoothies in Schools -
Nutrition, Delicious & Creditable
SNA recently hosted “Smoothie and Parfait Programs to Drive Participation” to share the new dairy industry Smoothie Toolkit. It includes tips and tricks from school kitchens that are currently using smoothies and parfaits to drive their participation. Click on the link below to access all these ideas and information.

Smoothie Toolkit Download Here: SmoothieToolkit-hnpxcm.pdf (midwestdairy.com)
The rules concerning how to credit smoothies to your menu are available in USDA-FNS memo SP 40-2019: Smoothies Offered in Child Nutrition Programs (azureedge.net)
Some of the highlights of this USDA-FNS memo include:
·        Milk is creditable in a smoothie: 8 ounces of fat free milk will credit as 1 cup of milk
·        All fruit and/or vegetables can be credited including fresh, frozen, pureed and juice. The pureed fruit/vegetable in the smoothie has the same rules as juice for breakfast, lunch and snack: no more than 50% of the fruit/vegetable served each week can be juice and for menuing in the snack program, milk cannot be served when juice is so a second creditable item must be served with the smoothie.
·        Yogurt is the only food item that may be used to credit as a meat/meat alternate in a smoothie. Peanut butter can be used to improve flavor or texture but cannot count toward the meat/meat alternate component.
·        No grain is creditable when blended into a smoothie. Granola or similar grain can be served as a topping or as a side to the smoothie but do not count when blended into the smoothie.
·        Commercially prepared smoothies can contribute to the meal pattern as long as they have a Child Nutrition (CN) label or a Production Formulation statement from the manufacturer.
Following was one of the recipes for the parfaits that were highlighted on this webinar:
USDA School Equipment Grants
NDDPI-CNFD has heard that we will be offering equipment grants again this fall so if you are possibly looking at a high-powered blender and buckets to blend quantity smoothie recipes in to increase meal participation, start looking at that equipment now.
USDA GUIDE TO SMOOTHIES IN SCHOOLS
July 1st brought a NEW resource from USDA Team Nutrition called “Offering Smoothies”. This resource provides same menus, crediting tips, nutrition information, a recipe as well as success stories from schools! Find it HERE: Offering Smoothies as Part of Reimbursable School Meals | USDA-FNS
NDDPI Child Nutrition and Food Distribution
Main Office:
600 E. Boulevard Ave, Dept 201
Bismarck, ND 58505  
PHONE: 701-328-2294 or 888-338-3663
FAX: 701-328-9566


Mayville Office:
14 Main St E, Mayville, ND 58257
PHONE: 701-877-8901 or 888-788-8901
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