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West Newsmagazine 3-7-18

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42 I COVER STORY I<br />

March 7, 20<strong>18</strong><br />

WEST NEWSMAGAZINE<br />

@WESTNEWSMAG<br />

WESTNEWSMAGAZINE.COM<br />

No child left hungry<br />

School districts seek balance between well-fed kids, unpaid lunch debt<br />

By BONNIE KRUEGER<br />

Rumbling stomachs and arithmetic<br />

don’t jive. That’s a concept about which<br />

everyone can agree. But how to deal with<br />

hungry kids at school and how to deal<br />

with the debt that arises when families<br />

can’t pay school districts for the food<br />

their children consume does not receive<br />

the same consensus.<br />

Over the past several years, the term<br />

lunch shaming has entered the national<br />

conversation. But what does that mean,<br />

exactly? It could mean that students are<br />

denied a lunch purchase as they checkout<br />

due to a lack of funds in their school lunch<br />

account. At the checkout, those children<br />

are asked to throw away their schoolpurchased<br />

lunch and, instead, given an<br />

alternate, less expensive lunch, perhaps a<br />

cheese sandwich or cheese crackers. The<br />

act of having to throw away their lunch is<br />

embarrassing for those children and costly<br />

for the district.<br />

Locally, the response has been to be<br />

lenient with children who charge more<br />

than they can afford. As a result of this<br />

leniency, local school districts are accumulating<br />

lunch debt, often in the thousands of<br />

dollars.<br />

The rising cost of feeding kids<br />

Carmen Fischer, Rockwood’s director<br />

of child nutrition services, said the district<br />

currently has an unpaid food service balance<br />

of $8,000, the total of unpaid charges<br />

from its 29 schools, with over 21,000 students<br />

served.<br />

Fischer said the district always has carried<br />

an uncollected balance, but this year it<br />

is a bit higher. Beginning this school year,<br />

students without a positive account still are<br />

able to purchase the traditional meal offering,<br />

rather than being given an alternative<br />

lunch or, in some cases, breakfast. Alternate<br />

meals include a balanced variety of<br />

protein, grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy.<br />

The United States Department of Agriculture<br />

[USDA] reimburses for alternate<br />

meals provided that those meals consist<br />

of at least three of the five items offered,<br />

chosen by the student, with one selection<br />

being a fruit or vegetable.<br />

Marlene Pfeiffer, Parkway’s food service<br />

director, said the district’s uncollected<br />

food service balance is a tad higher this<br />

school year, coming in at $10,000, instead<br />

of the usual $7,000 to $8,000. Parkway<br />

consists of 28 traditional schools and two<br />

early childhood sites and serves meals to<br />

approximately 17,000 students.<br />

This infographic highlights healthy meal components as defined by the USDA.<br />

At this time, Parkway offers an alternate<br />

meal if an account has a negative balance<br />

of $9.30 or greater. Up to the negative balance,<br />

the child can charge meals without<br />

the alternate being offered.<br />

In Parkway, the alternate meal is a choice<br />

between a cheese sandwich or cheese<br />

sticks with crackers or a Sunbutter with<br />

jelly sandwich plus a choice of fruit or vegetable<br />

and milk or juice. Breakfast choices<br />

are a bit more structured with fewer components,<br />

so no alternative or reimbursable<br />

meal is available.<br />

Contributing to increased balances<br />

across districts is the fact that balances roll<br />

over from year to year so long as a family<br />

member is enrolled in the district.<br />

One line of defense in reducing school<br />

debt for both Parkway and Rockwood is<br />

the myschoolbucks.com account manager,<br />

which allows parents to deposit breakfast<br />

and lunch money, track purchases and<br />

check account balances at any time. Parents<br />

may request an alert via text, email<br />

or phone when their child’s balance falls<br />

below the chosen minimum threshold.<br />

The districts also employ what some may<br />

call “old school” – sending a letter home<br />

or making a phone call to alert the family<br />

of the negative balance. In neighboring<br />

St. Charles County, the Francis Howell<br />

and Fort Zumwalt school districts employ<br />

this more personal approach on a regular<br />

basis. In recent years, Fort Zumwalt, which<br />

covers 25 schools, has seen a substantial<br />

jump in unpaid lunch debt to approximately<br />

$22,000.<br />

Fort Zumwalt Superintendent Dr. Bernard<br />

DuBray explained that the district’s<br />

mission is to do what they’ve always done<br />

– make sure their students are properly<br />

nourished and figure out collections as they<br />

go. But doing what they always have done<br />

may no longer be enough.<br />

In response to the Healthy, Hunger-Free<br />

Kids Act of 2010, Congress required the<br />

USDA to report on the feasibility of establishing<br />

national standards for meal charges<br />

and alternate meals and, if applicable, to<br />

make recommendations for implementation.<br />

The result were regulations that went<br />

into affect in July 2017.<br />

As part of those regulations,<br />

the USDA stipulated<br />

that school districts must<br />

develop and communicate<br />

a clear meal charge policy<br />

to families, including<br />

guidelines for delinquent<br />

accounts and how that will<br />

impact the child’s lunch<br />

or breakfast options. Also<br />

stipulated by the USDA<br />

are guidelines across all<br />

states, regarding the free<br />

and reduced price breakfast<br />

and lunch program, as<br />

part of the federally funded<br />

National School Lunch<br />

Program and the School<br />

Breakfast Program.<br />

Schools must provide notification to all<br />

families that this program exists. Often,<br />

the application and accompanying paperwork<br />

is provided in a child’s back-toschool<br />

packet; however, implementing the<br />

remaining USDA regulations varies from<br />

district to district.<br />

Random acts of kindness<br />

Francis Howell has implemented Policy<br />

5550, available on the district’s website,<br />

which details guidelines for delinquent<br />

accounts and what students will and will<br />

not be able to purchase without adequate<br />

funds. The district also created the online<br />

resource, Lunch Heroes, which allows<br />

community members and district staff<br />

to donate in support of students who no<br />

longer have funds in their lunch accounts.<br />

According to Francis Howell’s website,<br />

it costs an average of $50 per student to<br />

provide one month of lunches. Rockwood<br />

started a similar program at the end of<br />

2017. That program includes reaching out<br />

to parents of students who have graduated.<br />

“Often times, when a student graduates,<br />

parents will forget about the money<br />

in their child’s lunch account,” explained<br />

Fischer. “We contact them about any<br />

money left behind in those lunch accounts.”<br />

Families can receive a refund from the<br />

district, transfer the money to a sibling’s<br />

account or, as of late last year, donate the<br />

money as a random act of kindness to help<br />

a student in need. Parkway recently followed<br />

suit and is in the process of creating<br />

the online ability to accept lunch account<br />

donations.<br />

If a senior has an unpaid lunch balance at<br />

the end of the year, all four districts interviewed<br />

said graduation ceremonies are not<br />

Lunch account keypad at a Rockwood School

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