The Henton Headlines: June 17, 2021

THE HENTON HEADLINES
June 17, 2021
Here’s the scoop for the week...

Might automatically enrolling children into F/R priced meals without a form be the answer?

As you know, it has been exceptionally challenging during the pandemic to have all qualifying families complete the necessary form for F/R priced meals, which in turn affects the amount of compensatory funding school districts receive. In most cases, school districts will be receiving a decline of this funding stream as there was not an incentive for all families to complete the form.  With this in mind, the information below might provide an optimistic view of what could be to come:

USDA Responds to AASA's Request to Expand Direct Certification with Medicaid Demonstration Project

On June 11, 2021, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) submitted a response to AASA's allied coalition letter requesting that the department extend and expand opportunities for states to participate in the Direct Certification with Medicaid (DC-M) Demonstration Project, which currently enables 19 states to use Medicaid data to directly certify students for free or reduced-price school meals, under the authority provided in Sections 9(b)(15) and 18(c) of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. Specifically, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack stated that "USDA is actively working to identify possible options for building upon our existing DC-M demonstrations, and we look forward to offering expanded opportunities in the near future."    

You can check out AASA's initial letter here, and the USDA's response by clicking here.

Happy Father’s Day to all MASA members who are dads!

We celebrate all our dads and are grateful for being, or having been under their guiding light!

Leadership Matters:

"Truly great leaders spend as much time collecting and acting upon feedback as they do providing it." - Alexander Lucia 

 

Detailed information may be found at
https://www.mnasa.org/whats-new.html and the MASA Calendar.

June 19	Juneteenth
June 20	Father's Day
June 24-25	MASA Board Retreat
June 25	DUE: Application for The Minnesota Tax and Aid Anticipation Borrowing Program (MNTAAB), http://www.mnmsba.org/MNTAAB
June 29	MASA Annual Business Meeting | 11 am
June 30	DUE: MDE Minnesota Continuous Improvement Process
	DUE: MDE Finalize Title I application
	DUE: MDE ESSER II
	The applications for ESSER II 90% allocation and the allocation to entities that don’t receive the 90% allocation are due June 30, 2021 (FIN155 or FIN156)
July 1	Due: MASA Membership Renewal
July 4	Independence Day Observed
July 14	MDE: District and School Student Results (DSR and SSR) files available
July 15	DUE: MDE Seclusion Report
	Quarter 4 (April 1-June 30) due July 15
July 20	Eid al-Adha
August 4	2021 Back to School Conference: Reconnecting - Held Virtually 8-10 am
	Registration coming soon!