Direct certification is the fastest way most students get Free or Reduced meal eligibility: your state has already confirmed a student's household participates in SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, or foster care, so your district doesn't need to collect a separate application for them. The state sends your district a file of qualifying students, and Gaia matches that file against your roster and updates eligibility for everyone it can match.

This article walks through uploading that file, running the match, reviewing the results, and applying the changes. For a broader look at how eligibility works, including household applications and manual changes, see Student Eligibility (Free, Reduced & Paid).

You'll need:

Direct certification is managed from the Free & Reduced page, which is only visible to Child Nutrition Directors.

If your state provides a state student ID (California's CALPADS ID, for example), make sure student records in Gaia already have it on file. Gaia uses it to get a more reliable match than name-only matching.

Gaia compares every row in the file against your student roster and scores how confident each match is. Districts in California match automatically on each student's state ID; other states match using the general matching rules. When processing finishes, you're taken straight to the Eligibility Match Results page.

Use the Matched, Not matched, and All filters at the top of the page to work through the results. Each row shows a colored arrow for how confident the match is:

For any row, you can search for and select the correct student under Match to, and change the eligibility status Gaia proposes under New eligibility status. The Change column previews the result before you apply anything: the student's current status, an arrow, and the new one.

A row with no student selected under Match to is skipped when you apply. It won't create or change an eligibility record.

To keep a copy of the results, click Export at the top right of the page, next to Apply all changes. The spreadsheet lists every row from the file with its IDs, name, and original status, next to the student Gaia matched, that student's current eligibility, and the status that will be applied, including any changes you've made on the page. Export is still available after you apply.

For every matched row, Gaia creates a new eligibility record effective that day and expiring on the Valid Until date you set at upload, and automatically closes out the student's previous status. Both are visible afterward in the student's eligibility timeline.

Once applied, the match results become a read-only record. You can still open the page to see exactly what happened, which is useful for an audit, but nothing on it can be changed.

Under USDA rules, when one child is directly certified, the other children in the same household can usually get Free meals too, even if they weren't on the state's file. Check your state agency's guidance for which programs this applies to.

Gaia doesn't extend eligibility to other children on its own. To find them, download your roster, filter the Household ID column for the certified student's Household ID, and update each of the other children from Change eligibility on their row. This only works if your roster includes Household IDs. See People and Relationships in Gaia.