Rhode Island School District to Use Collection Agency to Collect School Lunch Debt
I teach in southern Louisiana, and our school’s lunch policy does not include fronting meals to students who do not qualify for free lunch. (Over the years, I have on numerous occasions either loaned or given students lunch money or directly provided them with food. However, in all cases, this was my personal decision.)
So, the idea of a policy that allows for students (parents?) to accrue lunch debt is not part of my K12 experience either as a southern Louisiana teacher or former student.
If districts have a policy of fronting meals, those districts should also have in place a means of paying for those meals if students and parents/guardians do not pay. Otherwise, the resulting debt could put a district in fiscal crisis– one that might result in, well, employing a collection agency.
Such is the situation for the Cranston School District (Rhode Island).
The Cranston School District advertises this “unpaid meal policy”, which includes the following information for parents/guardians:
Student wanting a lunch and not having money to purchase a lunch will be allowed to charge a lunch with repayment within two (2) school days.Once a student has charged five (5) meals (middle\high school $16.25 & elementary $12.50) and no payment has been received, that student will receive a lunch consisting of a sunny butter sandwich, fruit, and milk in place of a hot lunch. This meal maintains the USDA standards surrounding reimbursable meals and will be charged at full price to the student’s account.
Okay. Let’s see: No money; meal provided anyway with payment expected in two days– but that two-day payment isn’t really required because we’ll repeat fronting the meals four more times, and if still no payment, we’ll front a less CONTINUE READING: Rhode Island School District to Use Collection Agency to Collect School Lunch Debt | deutsch29
