1. Direct Certification: Best Practices
D.I.S.H.
February, 2015

2. What is Direct Certification?
Direct Certification (DC) is the process in which a student’s eligibility can be determined by certifying they are identified on the monthly KTAP, SNAP, Medicaid, or Foster Children list provided by SCN and downloaded to the district’s POS or Infinite Campus via the Web download tool.

3. Direct Certification Web Download Tool and User Reference Guide
The SCN Direct Certification Web Download Tool provides access to SNP sponsors for the purpose of downloading the Direct certification file through a secure Web portal.
A Direct Certification Web Download Tool User Reference Guide is posted on SCN’s website.
Certification Web Download Tool User Reference.pdf
Sponsors receive direct certification download files on a monthly basis for KTAP/SNAP/Medicaid and Foster Children.

4. State Provided Lists include:
KTAP/SNAP/Medicaid – a list of all KTAP/SNAP/Medicaid participants for which DC eligibility can be extended to other members of household.
Foster – a list of all active foster children in Kentucky; DC eligibility cannot be extended to other members in the household, thus a separate file had to be created.
Best Practice: Sponsors should update their student information on a monthly basis when they receive notification of availability of downloads.
Best Practice: Find more matches by importing the DC History file, both KTAP/SNAP/Medicaid and foster file. The history file contains a unique list of students from July to the current month. By importing the history file you’ll capture students who received public assistance in prior months but may not be on the current month’s DC file. The result will be more DC matches.

5. NEW! Beginning in March, 2015:
Beginning in March sponsors will have access to enhancements in the DC file based on COT’s advanced matching algorithm. The changes include:
More SSIDs Assigned – Based on the work by COT more students will have SSIDs assigned to them and the SSID assignment process should be more accurate. An initial review shows an increase of SSID assignments by 5-6%.
Out of County DC Students – The DC file will include students currently enrolled in your district, regardless of what county their public aid case is in. This means that you will see some students from different counties on your DC download file because IC shows them currently enrolled in your district. (It’s as if we matched the students enrolled in your district against the statewide DC file – and gave you all the matches from the other counties.)

6. District level list of DC Eligibility
District list of homeless, migrant and runaway children as well as federally funded Head Start. Make sure they are identified correctly, ie. DC-Categorical or DC- Homeless/Migrant. (7 CFR 245.6)
Best Practice: The district liaison submit to the FS Director a monthly signed and dated list.

7. Max out your DC!
Each month after downloading the current file review the Eligibility Import Report from IC that provides a summary description of the import results. Focus on the “Errors/Warnings”. (Reference Guide, page 12)
Two common errors:
Error 2004 – multiple matches may indicate duplicate students are in IC.
Error 1028 – The SSNs were not matched in IC. This may be because the SSN is incorrect in the DC import file or IC or the child is not enrolled in your district/diocese.

8. Max out your DC, cont.
Best Practice – More matches will be found if DC imports are done for both SSN and SSID. After importing on SSN simply change the dropdown value on the first screen to State ID and then enter a value of 7 on the second screen for sequence in data file: all other settings remain the same.
Best Practice for Private/Parochial Schools: To the extent possible all public school students have been identified with KDE’s State Student Identifier (SSID) on the DC file. Outside of a few public school students who are transferring in to your system, nearly all of your potential DC students will not have a SSID assigned to them. Thus, you can either filter out those students with an SSID or sort the file to only view those without a SSID. This is helpful if you intend to manually match the DC list to your POS student roster.

9. Manual Matching
Even with the improvements to the DC file on SSIDs a rationale still exists to perform manual matching. To manual match, compare those who are non-DC against the DC list. If the entire enrollment list is too burdensome you can focus on Categorically Eligible children for KTAP/SNAP.

10. Recordkeeping!
Please keep documentation on DC matching. You’ll need to sufficiently document situations (e.g., electronically or manually highlight rows on the DC file printout or roster created from POS) of matches that you found and retain notes on unusual situations so that the SCN program consultant can ascertain the DC matches. Also, please archive the Benefit Issuance Document (BID) used for April DC reporting, which is especially critical for any CEP schools. Retain on file! SFA should retain on file 3 years plus the current year. REQUIRED: Retain copies of each of the monthly downloads and history files districts receive electronically in a secure location. Also retain the certified Homeless, Migrant, and Runaway district lists.

11. B.I.D. – Benefit Issuance Document
For the purpose of April DC data (reporting of DC): Should contain name and DC benefit status, ie., DC, DC – SNAP, DC- Medicaid, etc.
For the purpose of an Administrative Review, the B.I.D. should:
Be generated from the point of service system used in the schools.
Contain the name and benefit status for all free and reduced price eligible students in the SFA. Do not group students by benefit status.  The student names should be listed in alphabetized order.
List the date of determination and method of determination. (income application, DC – SNAP, Extended, Categorical, etc.)
The list should NOT have duplicate names.– each eligible student should only be listed one time. The list should NOT include withdrawn children.

12. B.I.D. – Benefit Issuance Documents
Also known as:
Horizon – Student Roster Report
Lunchbox – Application Student Listing Report (note – this report can be exported to Excel)
Infinite Campus – Eligibility Report Detail
Nutrikids – Eligibility Summary Report

13. April DC data reporting, 2015
Instructions will be provided in March on April DC data reporting. All DC counts and enrollment information for the April DC report should be taken from your POS system.

14. Don’t wait!
Start now, making efforts to MAX out your DC!

15. Questions
For DC web download tool and user registration form, contact: SCN’s Cindy McIntosh,
General questions related to Infinite Campus:
Questions related to April DC data should be addressed to your approving consultant.
Additional questions, please contact:
Valerie Crouch, SNS
Administrative Section Supervisor
Programmatic Delivery Section
School and Community Nutrition
Kentucky Department of Education
(502) , ext. 4912