The needs assessment is an ongoing process which identifies the discrepancies between “what should be” and “what is” and shall be applied to each category listed below to enable State agencies to determine their nutrition education and training needs for each year. The needs assessment shall identify the following as a minimum:

Children, teachers, and food service personnel in need of nutrition education and training;

Existing State or federally funded nutrition education and training programs including their:

Goals and objectives;

Source and level of funding;

Any available documentation of their relative success or failure; and

Factors contributing to their success or failure;

Offices or agencies at the State and local level designated to be responsible for nutrition education and training of teachers and school food service personnel;

Any relevant State nutrition education mandates;

Funding levels at the State and local level for preservice and inservice nutrition education and training of food service personnel and teachers;

State and local individuals, and groups conducting nutrition education and training;

Materials which are currently available for nutrition education and training programs, and determine for each:

Subject area and content covered;

Grade level;

How utilized;

Acceptability by user;

Currency of materials;

Any major child nutrition related health problems in each State;

Existing sources of primary and secondary data, including any data that has been collected for documenting the State's nutrition education and training needs;

Available documentation of the competencies of teachers in the area of nutrition education;

Available documentation of the competencies of food service personnel;

Problems encountered by schools and institutions in procuring nutritious food economically and in preparing nutritious appetizing meals and areas where training can assist in alleviating these problems;

Problems teachers encounter in conducting effective nutrition education activities and areas where inservice training or materials can assist in alleviating these problems;

Problems in dietary habits of children and areas where nutrition education may assist in positive changes;

Problems encountered in coordinating the nutrition education by teachers with the meal preparation and activities of the food service facility and areas where training might alleviate these problems.

The needs assessment should be an ongoing process and provide not only data on current activities but also a description of the problems and needs in each category and whether training or materials would help alleviate the identified problems.