All students will have access to a healthy school lunch. No student will be subject to different treatment from the standard school lunch meal or school cafeteria procedures. It is the responsibility of students, guardians, or parents of students, to ensure that their child’s lunch account is adequately funded or that the child has a daily cash payment if they intend to participate in the District provided lunch program.
The District will provide access to applications for Free and Reduced-Price Meals. Application forms will be sent home with all students at the beginning of each school year, posted on the District’s website and available from the main office in each school. Applications are accepted and processed throughout the school year.
The parent or guardian of each student must receive and acknowledge receipt of this policy or the relevant procedure. The Food Service Department will notify students in all schools verbally and parents/guardians through email when their account reaches a balance of $0 or less so their account can be replenished. The school administration will notify students’ parents or guardians if their child’s account goes into a negative balance by sending home a notification letter. If the balance exceeds $40, the parents will be asked to meet with the school administration.
If the account is not replenished after written notification, a regular meal will be provided to all students regardless of their account balance at the time of service. The student’s account will be charged for the meal. The District may claim the meal as a reimbursable meal through the National School Lunch Program as all students will have access to all five food components and which meet the meal pattern regulations. With a negative account balance, students will not be permitted to make a la carte purchases on account.
As the District lunch program may not incur debt, any debt must be recovered annually. Any student debt at the end of each school year must be transferred from the food service account to the school’s general fund and at which time will become debt belonging to the school district. At the end of each fiscal year, the District’s general fund shall transfer to the Food Service account an amount equal to the total of outstanding student accounts receivable as of June 30th. The District will continue to attempt to collect the debt from the various households and any payment received will be returned to the general fund.
Legal References
RSA 189:11-a
NH Dept. of Education Technical Advisory - Food and Nutrition Programs
First-Only Reading: August 21, 2018
Adopted: August 21, 2018