What School Nutrition Staff Need to Know about Title I Funding

This resource explains Title I federal education funding and is especially helpful for school nutrition staff. It includes:

QUICK FACTS

• Title I is the largest federal K-12 education program that gives states funding to allocate to schools and schools districts with high percentages or numbers of children from low-income households. Title I is authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
• States distribute approximately $18 billion annually to schools and districts. Funding can be used to support extra instruction, materials, afterschool/summer programming, etc.
• US Census poverty data determines how much Title I funding is allocated to each state or school district.
• Participating in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), or other universal meals options, does not impact the amount of Title I funding states or school districts receive.
• Free and reduced-price school meal data is not an allowable measure to determine the amount a state receives; however, it can be used in district-level allocations (discussed below).

HOW SCHOOLS RECEIVE TITLE I FUNDING

1. States receive specific Title I funds from the Department of Education based on US census child poverty data and the cost of education in each state.
2. States distribute nearly all Title I funds to school districts by using formulas that are also based on US census child poverty data.
3. School districts distribute their Title I funding to individual schools based on school-level poverty data. School districts use one or more of the federally allowable poverty measures to prioritize funding to schools (see below).

MEASURING SCHOOL POVERY & PRIORITIZING SCHOOLS

Schools are generally eligible for Title I funding if the poverty rate is 35% or more. ESEA law and subsequent guidance states that school districts can use multiple measures to determine the number of students from low-income households, which are then used to rank schools and allocate Title I funding accordingly. Allowable poverty measures include:

• The number of students who are eligible for:
  • Free and Reduced-Price School Meals
  • Medicaid
• The number of students identified though:
  • Census poverty estimates
  • Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) data: Identified Student Percentage (ISP) with or without the 1.6 multiplier
• Children in households receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
• A combination of two or more of the above measures