CACFP Preschool & CACFP School Age Participant Programs

This feature allows users to add CACFP Preschool or CACFP School Age program types to a participant. 

Note: these program types should only be used for child care centers that need to file a separate claim for preschool children and school age children. The school age claim is sometimes referred to as an Outside School Hours Care Center claim.

If you do not want a separate claim for Preschool and School Age, then you should use the CACFP Standard program type instead.

To take a meal count for the CACFP Preschool or CACFP School Age program type, the

• sponsor,
• site,
• meal and
• participant

all need to be set up. This article is about authorizing a participant for the CACFP Preschool or CACFP School Age program type. See Related Features below for links to articles about setting up the sponsor, site and meal.

To use this feature:

• Click on Participants & Rosters from the main dashboard

• Click on the name of the participant
• Scroll down to the Participant Programs section

To add a program type to a participant:

• Click the orange "Add Program" button

• You will receive a pop-up alert reminding you that you will need to save your work when you are finished

• Click OK to clear the pop-up and you will see a new row in Participant Programs
• Select the program type from the first dropdown
• If the program type is not available, the the it hasn't been added to either the sponsor and/or the site.
• In Start Date, enter the first date that this participant can be claimed for that program type
• Leave the End Date blank

To end a participant program:

• Enter the end date in the row for the program type
• Scroll to the bottom and click save

Note: because claims are computed separately for these program types, a child cannot have the CACFP Preschool and CACFP School Age assigned for same date. If a child ages out, you will need to

1. add an end date to the CACFP Preschool program type and 
2. add a start date for the CACFP School Age program type.

• Participants can have the CACFP Preschool or CACFP School Age program type and also have one of the program types listed below.
• Head Start
• ARAM
• Participants who are eligible for CACFP Preschool will have a "PS" box next to their name on the meal count page
• Participants who are eligible for CACFP School Age will have an "SA" box next to their name on the meal count page
• If a participant program type is changed in a way that impacts a claim, you will trigger the error for "Program type is not valid"
• Once you enter the participant program type for a child, you still need to make sure all of these settings are correct in order to take a meal count
• The Sponsor needs to be eligible
• The Site Program needs to be active
• The meal type needs to be authorized

• If you make changes to participant program types part-way through the month, you can ask the system to automatically make sure that the meal counts are in the correct claim based on the participant's program type dates.