P-EBT Explained

Barry Schaeffer

October 17, 2023

We have been fielding a few calls about P-EBT benefits at our office, we thought it may be beneficial to publish some information explaining what P-EBT is and how our district and students would or would not qualify for the benefit.  

•P-EBT: Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer

•Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) is a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) program designed to provide cash benefits on an EBT card to be used to purchase food. This program is in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

For the district to be able to participate in the program there would have to be a closure or interruption due to  a response to COVID related illnesses.  

The following are examples of COVID-Related absences that qualify for eligibility for P-EBT

  • School directs student to stay home due to possible or confirmed COVID illness: individual student, classroom, or building.
  • Parent-directed COVID-related absence accepted by the school. Parent kept student home due to COVID illness in the home.

Eligibility 

Based on information provided to us by NDE regarding the the eligibility rules: 

A building must be eligible first, then students within the building may become eligible.

  1. To qualify one of our buildings (Early Childhood, Elementary or High School) for P-EBT benefits, at least one student would have to miss school for 5 consecutive days due to a COVID related absence.  We had no reports of a COVID related absence in any building, therefore none of our buildings would qualify.
  2. Student Eligibility:   When the building becomes eligible then a student who qualified for Free or Reduced price meals AND missed school for COVID related absence for any number of days could become eligible.  We had no reports of a COVID related absence.  Therefore none of our students would qualify.

In both instances, because we did not have reports of any COVID related absences, our district’s students do not meet the eligibility requirements to receive P-EBT benefits. 

We hope this will help clarify the P-EBT Program and how a school or students qualify for the benefits.  If you have any other questions please call the district office.