BASD wrestles with policy for delinquent meal payments
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
If a child’s parents neglect or refuse to pay a negative balance for school lunches, what should the district’s recourse be?
Nightly robo-calls until the balance is paid? How about no frills lunches consisting of peanut butter and jelly or cheese sandwiches? Or, in the worst cases, preventing a student from participating in their high school graduation ceremony?
Those are among the questions members of the Burlington Area School District’s Policy Committee began wrestling with Monday.
The district is required to have a new policy in place by July 1 that spells out the steps that will be taken in an attempt to collect unpaid meal charges, according to district Business Manager Ruth Schenning, who presented a preliminary draft of the policy to the committee.
The one thing the district won’t do is withhold meals from students.
“It’s very difficult to deal with because sometimes you’re dealing with very young kids who don’t influence what their parents do,” Superintendent Peter Smet said.
Goal: strike a balance
According to Smet, 38 percent of the district’s students currently qualify for free and reduced-price meals under guidelines set by the National School Lunch Program. That means this policy will apply to the 62 percent of students whose families are required to pay for school meals, which cost $2.45 per day at the elementary schools and $2.65 at the intermediate, middle and high schools.
Schenning said the district currently has 800 students with negative food account balances – all of them less than $100.
The challenge before administrators and School Board members is developing a policy that strikes a balance between protecting taxpayers from bearing costs created by neglectful parents and penalizing students who have few other options when it comes to meals.
The draft of the policy presented Monday proposes notifying families of unpaid balances through three methods:
- Nightly automated phone calls;
- Weekly emails to parents or guardians with an email address on file;
- Paper copies sent home with students or mailed to parents or guardians who don’t have an email address on file.
The district currently uses the latter two methods, but has not relied on automated phone calls in the past, according to Schenning.
Under the policy students will not be allowed to purchase a la carte items as long as they have a negative balance, unless they are paying cash for those items.
Students at the middle school and high school levels will be offered alternative meals if their negative account balance has reached $15 (middle school) or $10 (high school). That meal will consist of a peanut butter and jelly (or cheese) sandwich, fruit and milk. Elementary school students will continue to receive regular meals even if their negative balance exceeds $15, according to the policy.
In the event negative balances continue after the parents have been notified, the policy provides the following options:
- Reimbursable meals may be discontinued;
- A different alternative meal may be provided at a lower or no cost;
- Delinquent accounts may be sent to a collection agency; or
- Any economic assistance accounts (angel funds) available may be used to pay off the balance.
Not a bill collector
Burlington High School Principal Eric Burlington told committee members that he and the other principals are looking for clear guidelines that eliminate gray areas and narrow the scope of discretionary decisions.
“I’m not a bill collector,” he said. “I’m trying to get kids graduated.”
Burling did say that it is within the district’s rights to prevent a student from participating in the high school graduation ceremony – although the student would still receive a diploma – in the case a negative balance remained unpaid.
“There’s a lot skin in the game (when it comes to graduation),” Burling said. “It’s not an easy one to do.”
He said taking away a positive experience from a student because a parent has neglected to pay for lunches penalizes the student more than it does the parents.
However, he did say that requirements to pay off account balances prior to events such as homecoming and prom invariably result in the school collecting a significant amount of delinquent fees.
Frustration abounds
School Board and committee member Kevin Bird he’s frustrated by rules that prevent parents from having more control in situations involving older students.
“I think we ought to have the right as parents to allow no negative balances,” he said, suggesting that it would provide a good lesson in personal accountability for students.
However, Food Service Director Kathy Combs said the rules are in place to protect taxpayers from parents who don’t pay and don’t take an active role.
“It’s really frustrating as a parent when you pay your bill and others let their kids eat whatever and never pay,” she said.
The committee is expected to revisit the proposed policy again June 5 before making a recommendation to the board for approval at the June 12 meeting.
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