Despite a good gesture by Baierl Toyota of Mars to pay off more than $20,000 in school lunch debt for Ellwood City Area School District, it’s beginning to climb again.
During the September 9 school board meeting John Dzurina, Food Service Coordinator for the District said the debt is already at $500 after just two weeks.
He explained that the $500 is just for lunches or breakfast not a la carte items or second lunches.
This trend of constant debt has prompted the school board to consider partnering with an outside collection agency to try to stay on top of the issue in order to prevent the debt from rising to the thousands of dollars it has in the past.
When Baierl made its donation, school Superintendent Joe Mancini said he is noticing a trend in the school lunch debt rising, and he doesn’t see it getting better anytime soon.
“The recent lunch shaming law allowed for students to get a meal no matter what their debt was so this has put Districts into situations where students racked up a lot of debt. In the past we could stop serving a reimbursable meal and serve an alternative meal, but a more recent change to that allows Districts to serve an alternative meal after a student reaches $50 in debt during the year,” Mancini said. “I know that many districts have gone to collection agencies to get the debt paid off. We have held off on that step but it may be something that we will have to do in order to make sure students don’t get so far behind in paying.”
Currently when a student is behind in paying for five school meals, a letter is sent to remind parents that they owe money. Then the process continues with subsequent letters.
The board and administrators urge parents to apply for free or reduced lunches. They can do so at SchoolCafe.com. Mancini said if any family needs assistance in filling out the applications, they are free to stop by the school. Mancini noted previously that even when in doubt of qualification parents should apply.
“On average, over 50 percent of the students in the Ellwood City Schools are on free or reduced meal programs and now we are starting to see other students who cannot afford to pay,” he said. “We encourage all parents to go online and fill out the free and reduced application because they may qualify even if they don’t think they will.”
I can’t understand why this district is not providing FREE lunches to the students. If fifty percent of the students are already on free or reduced lunches, and in two weeks there is already 500 dollars in lunch debt…. What needs to be done to apply for district wide free lunches for these hungry kids? Who sets that up? The food service director? The school board? This makes me sad!