Each school year, NSLP and SBP require districts to verify a sample of approved Free & Reduced applications against real documentation from the household. Gaia builds the required sample for you, walks you through collecting and recording what each household sends back, and produces your final report.

Verification is separate from setting eligibility day to day; see Student Eligibility (Free, Reduced & Paid) for that.

If you're a nutrition director, go to Students > Free & Reduced > Verification.

Gaia shows its own count of approved applications for the school year. Enter your district's true total, since Gaia may not have every approved application on file. Gaia then calculates your required sample size (3% of that total, rounded up, capped at 3,000) and flags any shortfall between Gaia's count and yours, so you know how many applications to add by hand before selecting your sample.

If your district is fully covered by CEP or Provision 2/3, Gaia shows why you're exempt from sampling and still lets you file a zero-sample cycle. Set a school's meal-service designation (Standard, CEP, Provision 2, or Provision 3) from that school's settings; this determines whether it's included in your sample.

Gaia builds your sample by selecting error-prone applications first (income closest to the eligibility cutoff), then filling the rest randomly. You can add applications to the sample by hand.

Each case shows Gaia's own eligibility calculation next to the household's recorded status. When they disagree, the case is flagged Review income so you can look closer. Gaia never changes eligibility automatically.

Select cases and send household notices directly from Gaia: by email where you have one on file, or as a batch of printed letters for households without one. Edit your notice templates from Students > Outreach.

Open a case to record what the household sent, attaching documents as needed, and set the outcome: Confirmed, Changed, or Terminated. Setting an outcome updates the student's eligibility the same way any other eligibility change does.

After your response deadline passes, Gaia lists households that never responded. Non-response doesn't terminate eligibility automatically; terminate each one yourself once the deadline has passed.

From Reports, run the Verification Summary Report under the Eligibility category. Choose your school year and export as a locked Excel file or PDF. Every district gets a report, including exempt districts with a zero-sample cycle; any shortfall between Gaia's application count and your true total is footnoted on the report.