Economically Disadvantaged Count

Kathy Dunn, CCOSA Federal Programs Consultant

Matt Holder, Superintendent, Sulphur Public Schools

It is important to count all of your eligible students as Economically Disadvantaged. Did you realize that every student you are able to count is worth approximately $866.79 for your District? The state aid formula weight is .25 for these students.

Significant changes to collecting information on the number of economically disadvantaged children began in 2018. State Aid no longer uses the Low Income Report for Child Nutrition. The Economically Disadvantaged designation is pulled from your student information system and communicated to the State Department of Education through the WAVE. The Economically Disadvantaged student count impacts significant funding sources for schools, like the State Teacher Index, Title I funding, and federal E-Rate dollars.

In order to mark a student in your Student Information System (SIS) to be counted as Economically Disadvantaged, you must have verification of the family’s income on one of the two forms that are approved for this purpose. You may use either the Economically Disadvantaged form or the Free and Reduced Lunch applications from the current year. In addition, some students can be designated as Economically Disadvantaged by direct certification through the Department of Human Services in these programs:

• Foster care students under the legal responsibility of a foster care agency or the court system

• Children ages 3-20, who are receiving SNAP/ TANF benefits

• Children participating in the school’s Head Start program

The Free and Reduced Lunch Form is the primary source of data for the Economically Disadvantaged student count, and it is the only form for eligibility to receive free and reduced meal prices. If your school is taking advantage of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) in child nutrition, you are still required to have current year Economically Disadvantaged forms filled out by families in order to count any students as Economically Disadvantaged for State Aid and Accountability purposes. Any eligible students who do not return a completed Free and Reduced form could still be captured in the Economically Disadvantaged student count with the Economically Disadvantaged form.

Hopefully, you all are working diligently to collect the applications at this time, and then you will verify that all students who are eligible through the Free and Reduced form, the Economically Disadvantaged form, and Direct Certification are marked as Economically Disadvantaged in your student information system so that information is accurately reported through the WAVE. The deadline for this information is October 1.

Visit https://sde.ok.gov/economically-disadvantaged for the Economically Disadvantaged forms and more information. If you have issues with your data, make sure you contact the Office of Data and Information Systems at the State Department of Education at StudentDataInfo@sde.ok.gov or (405) 521-3020.