This data is based on the prior year’s October 1 enrollments and counts of students eligible for the free or reduced-price meal program. From the final Fall FY 2018 MARSS data, MDE will generate the October 1, 2017, counts that will be used to calculate FY 2019 compensatory revenue. For first year charter schools, these counts will be used for both FY 2018 and FY 2019 compensatory revenue. Therefore, it is critical that schools edit these data thoroughly during the fall MARSS reporting cycle and make any necessary corrections before the reporting timelines have expired. Several reports have been designed and made available to schools to assist them in editing and verifying data both locally via MARSS WES and posted to the MDE public website. MARSS coordinators should share these reports with others in the district or charter school who can assist in editing the counts. They include the Local MARSS WES report 12 – Compensatory Revenue Student Count, the Statewide MARSS WES Report 28 – Economic Indicator Comparison and the finally, the Compensatory Revenue Aid Entitlement Report posted to the Minnesota Funding Reports (MFR) website.
Note: This is not an indication of what happened with the student in the lunch line…as the MARSS Manual currently states on page 28:
The economic indicator field is reported by student as a demographic piece of information on the MARSS student file. It must be reported for all public school, public/contract alternative school, charter school and tribal contract/grant school students whether the students have access to a meal program or not. All of these schools are eligible to generate compensatory revenue based on the data reported in the economic indicator field. The data will also be used by other programs for selected schools.
Direct Certification - The enrolling district needs to verify that the student on the Direct Certification list is the same student who is enrolled in the school. If they are the same student, the student can be reported on MARSS as eligible for the free meal program – Economic Status 2.
Direct certification can occur in two ways:
• Schools with a food service program have access to a direct certification report through FNS. This is a list of the potentially matched students.
• All public schools have a warning message on the fall MARSS edit that identifies students who are enrolled in the district who may also be matched to the DHS list.
Students directly certified do not need to have an Application for Educational Benefits or an Alternate Application for Educational Benefits on file. For audit purposes, keep a copy of all applications and Direct Certifications used to report students on MARSS as eligible for the free or reduced-price meal program. (This would include the MARSS 08 – Error report indicating warning #364.)