Unpaid Meal Charge Policy

UNPAID MEAL CHARGE POLICY

The parent/guardian is responsible for ensuring their student has money in their lunch account, a packed lunch, or a Free & Reduced Lunch application on file. If applying for free or reduced-price meals, parents/guardians must provide lunch money or a packed lunch for their student until the application has been fully processed and they have received notification that their student has been approved to receive free or reduced-price meals.

Food & Nutrition Services encourages every parent/guardian who uses the PaySchools Central system to set up a low balance alert notifying them of a low balance on the lunch account and/or set up the auto-replenish feature to automatically add funds when lunch accounts reach a set point.

Any student PreK-8 who would like to purchase a lunch and does not have sufficient funds in their lunch account is permitted to “borrow” money from the district to receive a full reimbursable meal of choice.  Students whose meal accounts have insufficient funds of any amount will not be allowed to purchase a la carte items (except milk) until the account has sufficient funds.

Grades 9-12 will not be permitted to purchase items in the cafeteria without sufficient cash in hand or funds in their lunch account.

Meal balance reports are run weekly, indicating who has received a meal with insufficient funds in their account. This information is provided to the front office of each school.  The front office staff will communicate weekly via email to parents/guardians if their student has a negative balance and will provide instructions for payment options (cash or online with PaySchools Central).

The student is allowed to reach a negative balance of no more than ($50.00). The Food & Nutrition Service Office will notify each Cafeteria Manager and Building Principal when a student has reached ($50.00).  Building Principals will communicate with parents/guardians via phone to discuss the negative lunch balance, a transition to an alternate meal, as well as provide instructions on how to complete the Federal Free & Reduced Lunch application.

Upon reaching a negative balance of ($50.00), the student is provided an alternate meal that includes an uncrustable WowButter sandwich, vegetable juice, applesauce cup, and milk. The alternate meal contains all food groups and meets the reimbursable standard for a complete meal. The student will continue to receive the alternate meal until the account is paid in full.

Students who have qualified for Free lunches are still responsible for paying off any debt that was incurred prior to qualifying for Free lunches. 

Negative lunch account balances will carry-over from year-to-year until paid in full or until a student enters 9^th grade.  Upon entering 9^th grade, any negative lunch account balances will be converted to school fees.  Parents/guardians will be responsible for paying all fees listed in PaySchools Central.  Negative lunch account balance fees do not qualify for fee waivers.

12/13/2022