Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT)

Approved State Plan

DESE Food and Nutrition Services office is waiting on your LEA to submit two items for P-EBT benefits. The DEADLINE to submit these files is March 13, 2023. Please carefully review all the information below:

  1. The first item is your LEAs student absence template completed with the free or reduced-price eligible students that had a COVID-related absence during SY 21-22. Starting on September 1, 2021 students that would have normally received a free or reduced-price meal at school had it not been due to a COVID-related school closure or COVID-related absence are eligible for P-EBT benefits.  If you have not yet completed this first item please follow these steps-
    a.  Watch the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer training video
    b.  Review the P-EBT FAQ
    c.  Next, after watching the training video you must complete the survey to obtain your LEA unique registration
         code.
    d.  Once you receive our LEA unique registration code and log-in steps you can download your unique LEA
         student absence template using the DESE P-EBT Servicenow Portal,
         https://desepebtprod.servicenowservices.com/dese.
    e.  Review the knowledge base how-to articles and videos within the portal and follow the instructions to
         upload the student absence template to the portal.

Things to pay very close attention to and most common errors we have seen when completing the student absence template:

  • The absent begin and end dates must be within the eligible range.  Eligible absences begin and end dates can only range between September 1, 2021 through the end of the SY 21-22 (June 30, 2022). For example students absences during the month of August 2021 will be cancelled. Students are not eligible for P-EBT benefits during the month of August.  If a student absent begin date starts in August and ends in September – the student will only receive benefits for the days missed in September. 
  • Please DO NOT include August begin or end absent dates on your file.
  • Enter the number of consecutive school days the student did not receive a free or reduced-price meal at school because of COVID.  For example if the student absence date began on November 8 and ended on November 17th you must only count the number of school days the student was absent.
  • Do not count weekend days, non-school days, weather related AMI days or holidays in the number of consecutive school days the student was absent, these absences will be cancelled.  Do not add excel formulas to calculate the number of days for you.
  • You must enter absence begin and end dates using the format MM/DD/YYYY.  If you use a different format the date does not show up in the portal and may cause the case to cancel.  Please double check your date format before uploading!
  • REVIEW ALL YOUR DATA AND DOUBLE CHECK FORMATS PRIOR TO SUBMITTING THE FILE.
  • Only include students that would have received a free or reduced-price meal at school had it not been for a COVID-related absence during SY 21-22 only.  Paid students are not eligible for P-EBT benefits. Do NOT include Paid students on your spreadsheet.
  • Each consecutive day absence should be reported on a single line.  If the student had more than one consecutive day absent use another line in the spreadsheet to report the second consecutive day absence.
  • Call our office if you need help or have any questions before submitting.

     2.  The second item is your LEAs student data for Summer 2022. THIS IS A SEPARATE SUBMISSION. Summer benefits are available for school children who received free or reduce-price school meals during the month of May 2022 or the last month of the regular school year 21-22. Because the covered summer period is an extension of the school year, this includes free or reduced-price eligible children who graduate at the end of the school year 21-22. Summer benefits are NOT tied to Summer School attendance. School children who were eligible for free or reduced price school meals under the NSLP and SBP in SY 21-22 and enrolled in school during the last month of the regular school year are eligible for P-EBT summer. If a child dropped out of school prior to the last month of the school year, that child would be ineligible for summer P-EBT benefits.  If you have not yet completed this second item please follow these steps-
          a.  Carefully review the summer benefits information by watching the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer training
                video
           b.  Review the P-EBT FAQ
           c.  Log-in to the Servicenow portal and download the student summer template.
           e.  Make sure you have all free and reduced-price students only and information completed on the template,
                review and upload.

Please complete these two items as the best you can to ensure these families receive their benefits timely.  Our office will be reaching out to schools directly who have not submitted data.  Please forward this message to anyone else in the district who needs to be involved. The deadline to submit your file is March 13.

The Pandemic Eligibility Benefit Program (P-EBT) eligibility is for free or reduced-price students who normally would have received a meal at school had it not been for a COVID-19 related absence in school year 2021-2022 (September 1, 2021-June 30, 2022).  DESE needs to collect this student level information from the schools and then share with Dept. of Social Services to issue a P-EBT card with benefits loaded based on the level of days the student was absent. 

The Summer 22 P-EBT is made available to students who were eligible for free or reduced-price meals during the last month of the 2021-22 school year and these students will receive a summer benefit.

This program student sharing for P-EBT benefits under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, specifically 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)(C) and 34 C.F.R. § 99.35, as well as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, H.R. 6201, Section 1101(e).

Here is the USDA guidance on P-EBT https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/state-guidance-coronavirus-pandemic-ebt-pebt