Need to determine a student’s free or reduced lunch status but not sure where to start? jmc offers an intuitive solution for calculating eligibility based on federal guidelines. With just a few quick steps, you can enter household size and income for one or two earners, and jmc instantly displays the result. No manual calculations are required, making it a fast and accurate way to support families and maintain compliance.
Let's determine if a family qualifies for free/reduced-price benefits. Log in to jmc Office and navigate to Lunch > Free/Reduced > Determine Free or Reduced Status.
Step One: Enter the size of the household in the "Household Size" field to record the number of members in the household.
Step Two: Enter the income amount(s) in the appropriate "Income" field(s) for up to two earners to have them added up for qualification requirements.
Step Three: Click the "Calculate" button to determine if the household will receive free meals, reduced-price meals, or is not eligible for meal benefits.
Fun Fact: After calculating a family's household income, the "Eligible For" field displays the eligibility determination and income cutoff details, showing in real time whether the applicant qualifies for free or reduced-price benefits.
Step Four: Select the family from the "Contact List" field by entering their last name in the "Find" field.
Helpful Tip: The dependents for that contact will then appear in the "Student List," showing which students are affected by a change in free or reduced status.
Step Five: Enter the date of the status change in the "Status Effective Date" field, or click the calendar icon to apply the family's free or reduced status change to that date.
Helpful Tip: Using an effective date in the past will automatically update transactions and balances to reflect the newly determined status, so there's no need to manually adjust past records.
Step Six: Enter the date the determination was made in the "Determination Made Date" field, or click the calendar icon to select it from the calendar view.
Step Seven: Click the "Make Dependents 'Free'/'Reduced'/'Paying'" button to apply the determination result to the selected dependents in the "Student List."
Step Eight: Click the "OK" button to confirm the update to the dependents' status or click the "Cancel" button to exit.
Step Nine: Click the "Print Letter" button to generate an eligibility letter notifying the specified family of their determined meal status.
Step Ten (optional): Click the "Reset" button to reset the household size and income values entered to begin a new free and reduced determination.