The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) eligibility expansion intends to offer benefits to more students, yet leaders of eligible districts may choose not to apply for CEP to avoid related fiscal challenges, such as covering the cost of meals and potential loss of state aid. This project is the first to examine characteristics of the eligible schools and districts that choose to adopt CEP and then discontinue, or never adopt at all, to better inform future CEP policy changes. This study will examine districts’ historical adoption of CEP and the recent federal eligibility expansions to determine if newly eligible districts adopt CEP. The team will determine which students are most affected by the lack of CEP adoption and will examine district-level school food revenues and expenditures nationwide. This project will analyze national data on districts’ eligibility for CEP from 2015-2024 to determine which eligible schools and districts have either participated and ceased participating, or never participated, especially in the school years since the eligibility threshold was changed from 40-25%. The team will then conduct a difference-in-differences design to understand the fiscal effects of CEP. The target population includes all eligible districts in the nation from 2015-2025. In addition to identifying districts’ participation patterns, the team will examine CEP’s effects on school meal revenues and expenditures.