FARMINGTON – On Tuesday, the Mt. Blue Regional School District school board reviewed a new policy that would impact school meals, requiring prepayment and setting a maximum limit on the number of lunches that could be charged to a student’s account.
According to Andrew Hutchins, director of food services at MBRSD, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is mandating that all districts participating in the national school lunch program have a district charging program, in a bid to combat nationwide rising levels of family debt.
“So, we drafted a meal charging policy that we feel does not single out any students,” Hutchins said.
The district’s school meal program has run in the black for years. However, uncollected debt owed to the district, associated with local families, currently stands at $41,000.
Hutchins said that the district sends monthly bills and makes phone calls when it appears that a student’s family’s debt is getting too high, and sometimes eventually employs collection services. The district tries to work out payment plans, Hutchins said, and even works with families with vegetable gardens or farms to provide food for the program in lieu of money.
According to the draft policy provided to the board, the district would require meals to be pre-paid starting Aug. 1, 2017. Student families could mail checks or money orders, pay with checks or cash at any school or using credit cards electronically: E-funds for grades pre-K through 5 and MySchoolBucks.com for grades 6 through 12.
Students will still be allowed to purchase meals, milk and other items in the cafeteria, per usual. Currently, the district charges $2 for a lunch for grades K-5 and $2.25 for grades 6-12. Milk, which is included in the meal price, can be purchased for 45 cents separately.
Students would be allowed to charge up to 10 lunches or $35, whichever limit is reached first, to the district. Once that negative balance limit was struck, a letter would be mailed to the family. That letter would include the current balance, a copy of the policy and a free/reduced lunch application. Funds on a student’s account would be required to purchase milk, snacks or drinks.
Negative balances of more than $100 would make the student ineligible for student privileges or possibly graduation ceremonies. Negative balances of more than $300 would be referred to collections, assuming no effort had been made by the family to address the balance.
The policy says that no student who is believed to be improperly nourished would be denied a meal for any reason. That statement appears midway through a paragraph on the second page of the policy, and Director Doug Dunlap of Farmington suggested breaking it out into a stand-alone paragraph, due to the statement’s importance.
Both the policy, as well as national school lunch program regulations, prohibit denying meals as a form of disciplinary action against a student.
The policy also includes a provision that would have district staff report to building principals if a student repeatedly came to lunch with no meal or money for lunch over multiple days.
The board will conduct a second reading of the policy at a future meeting.
well at least it’s in line with the County thinking…punish those poor people!
I had to read this twice, as to believe a student who ha s dedicated years, and met all requirements, might be denied graduation ceremonies because their parents could not afford to pay $ 100.00 dollars
41 thousand bucks! holy right punish those poor people,,,lets see,,my kid eating or a pack of smokes,,,let me think about it,,hey they will feed them anyway! win win. by the way if they are poor they get free lunches anyway,,,well, free to them remember somebody has to pay.so sell that car you cant afford or shut your cable off if you cant afford it and pay your kids food bill please
Please explain! Folks who are poor get free lunch so why can’t people pay that don’t qualify for free lunch? What’s the deal nothing is free and folks need to make wise choices and their bills..
The thing is when the school calls it ” lunch money ” it’s not just that. It includes any fees for computer damages ,books,lunch or caps and gowns together and if they don’t pay they don’t March. My son fell into this situation becaaue his dad was court ordered to pay for this and wouldn’t and I wasn’t working and unable to afford it . I therefore had to threaten court and my son had to deal with stuff from the school because his ” lunch money ” had to be paid in order to graduate.
Right on kevin!
Here’s an idea- we seem to have plenty of people convicted of sex crimes against kids. Why not make THEM pay for lunches when a family cannot afford it?
Good idea Yeppers !! Maybe instead of paying for heroin addicts “meds” we could use that money to give every kid free lunch !!!
Aww shucks. Let’s go to single payer. pay out of out pp taxes. It’s for the children.
Shouldn’t we give them a free mobile device as well.
Looks like the policy is all about creating a charge account system to track and hold families accountable for debt owed for lunches. If so, this policy would affect all students in RSU 9 who use cafeteria services…
Am I missing something? most comments above are all about free and reduced price lunch recipients, and their families, and most of those comments are strongly negative
CRAZY!
Is there a way to donate to the school for this? I would gladly pay the $100 lunch bill to allow a child to graduate.
Not sure why my comment didn’t make it the first time…..but with all the taxes that go to our local schools the lunches should be included.
Ultimately, I do think it is the responsibility of the parent to provide food for their children, but seriously, there is enough money going to the schools that this shouldn’t be an issue.