Managing Oklahoma Direct Certifications

This article explains how to obtain a list of direct certified students from the OSDE and then update student lunch programs in SchoolInsight.

Direct certification is a method of identifying students who qualify for free or reduced lunch meals through federal programs. The Department of Human Services sends data to the Wave for students, ages 3 - 20, who qualified for SNAP, TANF, etc. Each school downloads data about its students to qualify them for the correct lunch program. This reduces the paperwork and time your staff spends on checking applications and verifying them. Schools are encouraged to pull the Direct Certified list at least 3 times a year to check for updates. The OSDE typically releases the direct certification list in late July and early August. 

To obtain a Direct Certification file from the OSDE, follow instructions from their documentation.

After obtaining the file, you can import it directly into SchoolInsight. This will only update students with an active or future enrollment status.

To import direct certification:

1. Go to District Main > Import/Export > Import Direct Certification
2. Choose a file to import
   1. Browse to the folder that contains the Direct Certified file
3. Preview
4. Review the information
5. Import

If changes to a student’s direct certified status happen mid-year, it’s usually easier to individually edit the student to update their lunch program status.

To update a single student’s lunch program:

1. Go to Main > Student Single View (beta)
2. Search for the student
3. Go to General > Demographics
4. Edit Demographics
5. Find Lunch Program and click on + to add a new entry.
6. Save

Important Considerations

Here are some important things to consider when importing a direct certification file:

• New lunch program entry will be created if:
  • There is a change in program membership
  • The effective date comes after the latest existing date
• The import will not update anything if:
  • The student enrollment is Inactive (student already exited the school)
  • There is no change in the lunch program
• The import will replace the existing lunch program entry if:
  • The lunch program changes
  • The effective date remains the same
• The import will create a new entry and delete existing entries if:
  • The program membership changes
  • The effective date pre-dates an existing entry
  • All earlier program entries will be retained
  • All program entries after the new entry will be deleted

Here is an example to illustrate the last point. Let’s consider this lunch program before importing a direct certification file:

Note the last entry’s effective date is 8/15/2024 and the lunch program is reduced. We will assume the file includes a different lunch program, free, that predates the last entry, effective date is 8/10/2024. Importing such a direct certification file will delete the last entry and will create a new entry from the file. After the import, the lunch program will look like this: