Uncommon Sense: School Meal Program

Marlow Public Schools Superintendent

If your child lives in the Marlow School District or has an approved transfer to attend, he/she will be allowed to attend school- regardless if they owe for school meals or not. Recently, our efforts to encourage parents/guardians to contact the school about their student’s lunch bill created some social media discussion. This letter is my effort to try to clarify the situation.

The Federal School Lunch program in public schools has a long-standing practice of helping districts provide meals for students in need. Districts like Marlow, utilize federal dollars provided from those students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The key to this program best meeting those needy students is parents/guardians filling out the lunch application each year. During COVID-19, the federal government provided funding for free lunches to all students in public schools- regardless of a parent’s/guardian’s income level.

This past year, districts were required to go back to having parents/guardians fill out forms to determine if their student(s) qualified for free or reduced-price lunches. After two years of everyone eating for free, going back to the pre-COVID-19 pay system proved challenging. Many parents/guardians did not fill out the application- even after numerous attempts by the district requesting them to do so. Others, who previously paid for school meals prior to COVID-19 pandemic, were confused why they now were getting a lunch bill. Many of these parents did not pay their student(s) bill even after being contacted by the district and sent numerous reminders.

To date, our district has over $20,000 in unpaid student meals made up from over 400 students who have an outstanding balance. The district has a few options on how we can address this situation. We can take the parent/guardian to small claims court to try to retrieve payment. In many cases, this would only hurt families who are already struggling financially. Instead of doing that, we prefer to work with families.

We can follow federal suggestions on this issue and feed the student a sandwich each day instead. This option draws attention to the student and puts them in a place to be embarrassed. We prefer to not involve the child this way.

The law will not allow us to use any school funds to pay the student’s debt. This would be illegal use of funds. The law will not allow us to just ignore the debt and allow it to continue to get worse. The law will not allow us to refuse to let the student in the cafeteria. The law will not allow us to require students to bring a lunch. The law will not allow us to fill out a free or reduced lunch application for the parent or guardian- even if we know 100% their students would qualify. So what do we do?

We work with families. We consistently communicate their meal balance by sending home invoices and making phone calls. We consistently demonstrate a willingness to help them find a solution. Sometimes that is setting up a small payment plan they can afford and sometimes it is a staff person or community member providing a donation to help our families in need. We choose this option because it impacts the student the least.

We do not want to hold a student accountable for actions or inaction on the part of a parent or guardian. This is why we try so hard to encourage parents/guardians to contact us as opposed to just turning it over to a collection agency like other businesses do. $20,000 of child meal program debt is not something to ignore. We are trying to balance meeting the requirements by law and taking best care of our students. With parent/guardian involvement in this process, we know we can work together to do just that.