The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) submits this Report to the Legislature pursuant to section 165 of chapter 133 of the acts of 2016 (the FY17 general appropriations act): "The department of elementary and secondary education, in consultation with the executive office for administration and finance and the executive office of health and human services, shall conduct a study on the calculation of low-income students within public school districts as it relates to determining the number of low-income students in the distribution of funding pursuant to chapters 70 and 76 of the General Laws." The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) was enacted by Congress in 1946 to provide free or subsidized school meals to low income students. Because of the widespread adoption and popularity of the NSLP, eligibility for free and reduced price school meals (FRP) has become the de facto measure of the number of "low income" students enrolled in each school. FRP would still be used as the low income measure today if it weren't for the enactment of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act by Congress in 2010. Under this legislation, if a school, group of schools, or district could identify at least 40% of its students as eligible for free meals, then it could elect to provide free meals to all of its students, without the need to verify every individual student's eligibility. This new program, known as the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), offers many benefits to participating schools. But CEP's success created an unintended consequence. With so many students participating, eligibility for free and reduced price lunches was no longer an accurate measure of low income status. This report explores a new economically disadvantaged metric developed to replace FRP, statistical comparisons, other programmatic impacts, alternative approaches used in other states, and provides recommendations for low-income student measurement.