Parents and guardians of students in the Gorham School District recently received an e-mail about a change in procedure for student meal accounts. While striving to ensure that all of Gorham’s students have access to healthy nutritious meals, the District is also concerned about the ongoing and rapidly increasing debt on student meal accounts.
“The percentage of folks that end the year with unpaid balances for our School Nutrition Program is very small; only a handful (20-25) each year, which when you consider how many students we serve is a very small percentage,” said Superintendent Heather Perry.
“However, the problem is that these few individuals can create a pretty significant unpaid balance, which has continued to grow over the course of the past three to four years from just a few hundred dollars four years ago to now an amount in excess of $12,000, which was last year’s amount,” said Perry.
Due to this rapid increase in debt, effective as of April 3, the District will have a new procedure relating to students with unpaid balances on their meal accounts.
If a student’s balance due reaches $25, the student will be provided with an alternate meal instead of the standard breakfast or lunch entrée until the balance is resolved. This alternative meal will include all the components of a regular lunch but with a cheese sandwich, instead of the standard entrée, for $2.75 for grades K-8 and $3 for grades 9-12. An alternate breakfast meal includes cereal, milk, and juice for $1.25.
According to Perry, Gorham’s School Nutrition Program (SNP) operates as its own separate budget and needs to make sure that its revenues cover its expenses each year. At the end of a school year, the SNP sends the Gorham School Department what amounts to a bill for the unpaid balances.
“That being said, you can imagine that a $12,000 bill at the end of the year that is paid for by the Gorham School District impacts all taxpayers within the community, because those become funds that the Gorham School District either has to raise (via taxes), or that we are unable to spend on specific educational programming that had been planned for because we have to cut a check to SNP to cover these unpaid balances,” said Perry.
The District will communicate frequently with parents and families about unpaid balances, and only as a last resort, after no less than three direct communications, would it then look to provide an alternative meal to a student. Parents/guardians can call during any school day to find out the balance.
“Additionally, we have developed a process so that we are very careful not to draw out students/families that can’t pay, or to make students feel bad if they have to have an alternative meal,” said Perry.
Parents/guardians may be eligible for free or reduced price meals. A Free & Reduced Meals Application form is available here. www.gorhamschools.org. A blank application form can also be obtained by contacting the school kitchen managers at the student’s school.
If money is owed, payment can be made via cash or check to your school kitchen (payable to GSNP). There is also an online payment system here. This site also has the functionality to e-mail a parent/guardian automatically when the account falls below a certain level.
The bottom line, according to Perry, is that “families that are eligible for free/ reduced lunch shouldn’t have to pay (even with their taxes) and the families that should have to pay, need to, so that all students are not negatively impacted.”