When it comes to administrative reviews, state agencies are often seen as the enemy—a perception that those hard-working representatives really want to change!

It’s 2020, which means nothing is normal—and that includes the Administrative Review (AR), which normally requires state agencies to make an in-person visit to districts to observe operations and ensure the school nutrition program is complying with federal regulations. ARs aren’t happening right now “in the same way as we have done them in the past,” comments Diane Golzynski, PhD, RD, Director of the Office of Health and Nutrition Services for the Michigan Department of Education, and Chair of SNA’s State Agency Advisory Council. She notes that her team is doing more of the AR steps virtually via phone calls, FaceTime and Microsoft Teams sessions, especially focusing on providing technical assistance to the programs that are “most at risk of program integrity.”

School nutrition teams who’d been anxious about a scheduled visit for SY2020-21 might be breathing a sigh of relief. Depending on the practices in their state, it’s unlikely to have a state reviewer peering over their shoulder anytime soon, but the truth is that an AR should never be the anxiety-provoking experience that it’s often built up to be. School Nutrition connected with three state agency directors who identified some of the biggest misperceptions that program operators have about the AR process, as well as sharing advice for how school nutrition teams can work collaboratively with their state agency staff to ensure that everything goes smoothly once those onsite reviews do return...