Meal Charge Policy

SCOPE OF RESPONSIBILITY:

The Nutrition Service Department:  Responsible for providing access to healthy meals for all enrolled students, maintaining transaction and charge records, and for notifying the student’s parent/guardian of low or outstanding balances at regular intervals. The Nutrition Service Department is also responsible for notifying the School District of outstanding balances.

The School District:  Responsible for supporting the Nutrition Service Department in maintaining accounts in good status and collection activities.

The Parent/Guardian:  Account monitoring and immediate payment.

Where does the money go?

Funds collected for meal purchases pay directly for the food included in your child’s meal, as well as so much more.  Some goals meal purchases fund include:

• Continued lean protein and whole grain entree options

• Continued access to fresh produce

• Continued farm to school and locally procured produce

• Continued Nutrition Services Team excellent service standard

• Scratch cooked menu items (meaning food is created and prepared completely on site)

• Farm to school activities, such as farmer visits and produce taste testing/cooking events

• Nutrition Education in the classroom

• Increase children’s consumption of fruits and vegetables

Charge Policy and Methods of Collection

PLESD allows students to charge meals even if they have a negative balance because we understand that there are days when automatic payments may not have been completed, students forget to bring lunch or their money, and more.  Parents are expected to immediately bring the account into good standing. If negative balances are not paid the school district will use, but will not be limited to, the following methods collect the balance due:

• Email communication sent home requesting balance to paid;

• Automated phone calls requesting balance to be paid;

• Discrete letters mailed directly to home address requesting balance to be paid; 

• Personal phone calls home;

• Referral of account to student services department;

• Home visit.  

Balances Owed with No Response by Parent/Guardian:

If the payment is not received, the Superintendent or his/her designee may take one or more of the following actions, unless or until prohibited by state law or regulation, and/or current Board Policies:

1) Prohibit participation of student, or other students in the student’s household, from participating in any future fee based program until or unless outstanding balances are resolved.

2) Revoke inter-district agreement. 

Account Management

Account management is the responsibility of the family.  Account management tools include:

• Convenient online access to view your student(s)’ account for free with www.MySchoolBucks.com.

• Access to the most recent 30 days transaction records through www.MySchoolBucks.com.

• On-the-go monitoring with the FREE MySchoolBucks app for smart phones and smart devices.

• Access to transaction histories detailing all purchases and payments for the current school year, available by request through the Nutrition Services office.

• Repayment arrangements directly with the Nutrition Services Department.

Refunds:

For withdrawn, and promoting students; a written request for a refund of any money remaining in their account must be submitted. An e-mail request is also acceptable. Students who are promoting at the end of the year will be given the option to transfer to a sibling’s account with a written request.

Unclaimed Funds:

Unclaimed funds must be requested within one school year. Unclaimed funds will then become the property of the PLESD Nutrition Service Program.

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