How does your school handle the lunch policy?

[luvmy3]

Ahhh, but was he told? There seems to be a question on that per the article (underlining is mine):

Director Sam McCollum said his son's account was also in arrears, but he only learned of it when he checked online, through Nutrition Group's Web site, mylunchmoney.com. His son was never notified.

Dr. Jerome Bartley, district superintendent, said the policy is to not have charges whatsoever at the middle and senior high school. Workers are supposed to remind a student that his or her account is low whenever the balance drops below $5, and they are to refuse service when it dwindles to zero.

Bartley said he will check with the cafeteria workers to make sure they are following the policy.

Not being there ourselves, we don't know what actually occurred on or before the incident.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I'll say it again. If there is a website where the parents or kid can access their lunch acct, and check their balance there is absolutely no excuse for either of them to not know, regardless if they were told by the cashier/teacher/principal or not. Its called your responsibilty.

 

[golfgal]

Well I dont know about your teenagers but I know my one teen is so busy and involved with so many things in school that lunch is the last thing we talk about at the end of her day. Right now she is in the school play and is in rehearsals until 9 PM. Im lucky to even hear if she ate lunch that day. Im the parent and she is my responsibility until she leaves the nest, and so I will go online and keep tabs of her lunch acct and give her a check when needed. Does that make my snowflake irresponsible?

It takes 2 seconds to say "mom, I need lunch money". I am the parent too but guess what, the kids don't have all that much time left to be on their own and part of your job as a parent is to teach them to take care of themselves and part of that means learning how to be responsible to feed themselves. When she goes to college are you going to be checking her meal account balance online because she is busy??? My teens are PLENTY busy but never so busy that they can't say "mom I need lunch money" like DS15 did today. Does it make your snowflake irresponsible, I don't know but I think it does make you irresponsible for not teaching your kids to be adults.

 

[HelenePA]

I dont know about you but sometimes we dont even get our calendars until the month is half over.

Oh wow, no we are lucky we get them sent home a week before the new month starts in their communicator envelope we get every Thursday. As soon as I get it I hang it up on the wall so I dont misplace it with the thousands of other papers I get every month between the 3 kids. I really do wish we could add money and see the account online.

 

[HelenePA]

It takes 2 seconds to say "mom, I need lunch money". I am the parent too but guess what, the kids don't have all that much time left to be on their own and part of your job as a parent is to teach them to take care of themselves and part of that means learning how to be responsible to feed themselves. When she goes to college are you going to be checking her meal account balance online because she is busy??? My teens are PLENTY busy but never so busy that they can't say "mom I need lunch money" like DS15 did today. Does it make your snowflake irresponsible, I don't know but I think it does make you irresponsible for not teaching your kids to be adults.

I think its time for someone to have a snack.. all of this over a lunch balance of a few dollars sometimes? geesh

 

[Mellie2162]

Does it make your snowflake irresponsible, I don't know but I think it does make you irresponsible for not teaching your kids to be adults.

Wow so Im not teaching them to be adults just because I keep check of their lunch account? Well then I guess my snowflake will just have to be a child then because I will make sure she has lunch every day while in school.

 

[Lunchlady]

I work in a school cafeteria and can tell you there are MANY parents that will never pay the school what they owe. We have kids that have never paid one penny for lunch but refuse to fill out a free lunch form. But we ALWAYS feed their children. The parents know they won't qualify but still refuse to pay. Of course I am in an elementary school. The middle and high school have a no charge policy. No money. No lunch. These kids are more that able to remember lunch money. We are over 95% free and reduced lunch so we are talking about a small percentage of kids. I know all of you will pay lunch money. But that is the perfect world. If all parents were like you there would never be an issue of negative balances.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Wow, I hope you never fall on hard times.

Being irresonsible and falling on hard times are two different things.

Most are defending the idea that irresponsiblity should not be reason to deny a meal to a teenager.

Notice in the article--this child had not fallen on hard times. Honestly--if he had, it would have been mentioned.

We need to stop using that as an excuse to avoid accountability.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

But the school shouldn't be caught up in the families financial situation either. If they don't have money, they need to call the school and make arrangements or the kid needs to bring food from home. The school isn't a charity and if the parents aren't feeding the kid, social services should be called to deal with it, not the school.

Further--all these touching stories of hard ship add great spin to try and twist those of us who agree with the actions against the student in the article as cold hearted people.

But as it stands--there was no financial issue other than he was deficit. Schools are not in the business of debt collections and his mom is just ticked that he got in trouble.

Nowhere does she mention a hardship. Surely leniency isn't too much to ask when there is a true problem as the child of divorce with the crappy parents.

But that is not the case here.

The kid will not starve--and someone mentioned about laws regarding care of minors under the age of 18....

If I needed to send my kid to bed without dinner for an infraction, it isn't against the law. The child is not 'STARVING' by definition. Now if I withheld all meals and were cruel...that is different.

But nothing in the story suggests in any way that this kid fell on hard times.

 

[blu3d3vil]

Free Lunch? Reduced Lunch? What am I missing out on here? I pay $3.75 a day for my kids lunch a week ahead of time. If I don't pay for a day and he forgets to bring his lunch the school provides an emergency lunch for $5. If we don't pay the bill we don't get his records and he won't be able to attend that school the following year.

 

[luvsJack]

For our elementary, middle school and high school if the kid's don't have money (for whatever reason) either the cafeteria or the office will "loan" them the money. The child is given a little charge slip that has to be signed by the parent and returned (hopefully) with the money. If the parent and/or student does not pay the balance due by the end of the year, the student's report card is held until it is paid. If the student comes back the following school year and still has not paid, he/she is not registered in school until whatever balance is paid.

9 out of 10 times the school gets their money and no child is left unfed. Also, they do not give the kids without money a different lunch. According to our food service manager that would just cost more time and more money and they see no need in it.

Whatever the age of the kid, they are in school all day and don't have a lot of choices on getting something to eat. They may have not had breakfast before they left home. It is really not going to be that much skin off of anyone's nose for that kid to get a lunch. Its not like the food didn't go to waste anyway.

 

[*BTMRR*]

This is a timely thread. Our school doesn't allow "charging" at all. If a kid forgets, they go hungry.
Today, my 2nd grader forgot his lunch for the first time ever.
His sweet teacher bought lunch for him out of her own pocket. Can you imagine how mortified I was when I found that out?
I am going to send money in a thank you note for her tomorrow!

My kids never eat school lunch, but I need to put some money on their accounts just in case they forget their lunchboxes.

 

[DizBelle]

I do ask.. they dont always tell me the truth because they think they are going to get in trouble for me packing a lunch and them eating in school. I've never once yelled.. You sound like a lovely person.. Have a nice day Thankfully ours schools are not a cold as some people

If your children are lying to you, then that is an entirely different problem.

How does wanting people to be responsible for their business make me not a lovely person?

 

[DizBelle]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I'll say it again. If there is a website where the parents or kid can access their lunch acct, and check their balance there is absolutely no excuse for either of them to not know, regardless if they were told by the cashier/teacher/principal or not. Its called your responsibilty.

Even if there isn't a website, there is no excuse.

Long before my bank had a website, I was able to keep track of my account. I knew how much I deposited (because I put it in there). I knew how much was taken out (because I took it out). The bank never had to send me a notification when my account got low. They did, however, send me a notification (and charged me a hefty fee) when I overdrafted my account. Was that the fault of the bank? Following the logic of this thread, apparently it was.

Perhaps school lunch accounts is a good learning tool for kids. Have them keep a "check register" of their account. Have them record the deposit and record every time they spend from it. No website needed and a valuable skill learned.

Should each school hire someone whose only job it is to keep track of every student's lunch account and send out notifications when accounts get low? How much would that cost in salary for this person, paper, ink to print, envelopes, postage? Why should taxpayer money be used for that?

 

[HelenePA]

If your children are lying to you, then that is an entirely different problem.

How does wanting people to be responsible for their business make me not a lovely person?

Like I said I pick and chose my battles.. this is not one of my battles.. I could careless I'll pay the bill when I get it like I have done.. no big deal. If it was I'm sure if it was I'd get a nice little letter sent home.

 

[torinsmom]

I didn't read all the replies, but I am a teacher in a PreK-5 school. I teache PreK/K kids and it makes me sad to have the lunch lady tell a child they can't get milk because they are out of money. I don't think they do that with lunches though. We had a 4 year old crying hysterically over not getting milk a few weeks ago. This child's parent is a teacher at another school and just forgets to send money in every month. Anyway, we have one little girl who gets lunch every Friday and does not get milk(she only drinks organic). I went back up to the lunch line and got her milk for the little 4 year old. The lunch lady didn't like it, but I didn't really care.

Marsha

 

[luvmy3]

Even if there isn't a website, there is no excuse.

Oh I totally agree but I find it odd that the part of the article where the Director said he didn't know the balance was negative until he checked the website, has been some how ignored. The lunch program at this school has a way for parents to see exactly what is in their childs account, maybe these parents should have checked it. Seems like this whole incident could have been avoided had this mom did that. How the school is somehow at fault for not notifying the mom is beyond me

 

[MushyMushy]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I'll say it again. If there is a website where the parents or kid can access their lunch acct, and check their balance there is absolutely no excuse for either of them to not know, regardless if they were told by the cashier/teacher/principal or not. Its called your responsibilty.

The school only signed on to that website this past winter, maybe late December or early January. They started denying kids lunches at the beginning of the school year. As I said in a previous post, the cafeteria workers would NOT tell a kid what their balance was, so how were we parents to know?

Unless your kid JUST gets the regular lunch, there's no way of really knowing what they spent. They can get a la carte stuff like cold sandwiches, salads, bottled water, fruit, etc. So, one day they might spend $1 and the next day spend $2.

 

[jrmasm]

The school only signed on to that website this past winter, maybe late December or early January. They started denying kids lunches at the beginning of the school year. As I said in a previous post, the cafeteria workers would NOT tell a kid what their balance was, so how were we parents to know?

Unless your kid JUST gets the regular lunch, there's no way of really knowing what they spent. They can get a la carte stuff like cold sandwiches, salads, bottled water, fruit, etc. So, one day they might spend $1 and the next day spend $2.

When they come after school they can tell you what they spent each day. Keep a running total on the fridge.

 

[luvmy3]

The school only signed on to that website this past winter, maybe late December or early January. They started denying kids lunches at the beginning of the school year. As I said in a previous post, the cafeteria workers would NOT tell a kid what their balance was, so how were we parents to know?

Unless your kid JUST gets the regular lunch, there's no way of really knowing what they spent. They can get a la carte stuff like cold sandwiches, salads, bottled water, fruit, etc. So, one day they might spend $1 and the next day spend $2.

The article was dated 3/17/10 months after they started using the website. I agree that it would be a nice courtesy that the school informs you of your balance however I disagree with the fact that there is no way of knowing. I ask my kids what they get for lunch everyday, so even if I couldn't check their balances, or get my reminder emails I would still have a god idea of how much money they have. Also I know that if I put $25 on their acct, that means they have about 2 weeks worth of lunches, provided they aren't buying water bottles and ice cream everyday, so even if I didn't ask I as a parent could pretty easily figure out that its been awhile since I had given them money for lunch.

 

[MushyMushy]

When they come after school they can tell you what they spent each day. Keep a running total on the fridge.

I'm sorry, but that's really unreasonable. Maybe not SO much for high school kids, but certainly for the younger kids. They have enough to worry about in a school day without having to think about writing down everything they ate during a 1/2 hour lunch break, especially when they're rushed through the line like cattle.

We know general prices for foods, but not a la carte. The school puts their menu online, but it's a .pub file. How many people here on the DIS can open a .pub file? Certainly not me and I'm even a bit of a techy geek, let alone half the people in my area who don't have internet OR computers.