I wanted to clarify the message I sent this week about lunch bills. We have had a longstanding policy in our extracurricular activities handbook that if a student owes $50 or more for meals, they need to pay this before they can participate in extracurricular activities. We did not enforce this last year, and as a result, we carried excessive meal charges which were listed as a concern on our annual audit. To correct this, we are making every attempt to work with our families to keep meal bills paid this year.
We fully understand sometimes families fall into difficult financial circumstances. Anyone can complete a free/reduced meal form at any point during the school year if your financial situation changes. Please make sure it gets back to the office; if you send it with your student, sometimes they get lost between home and school and we don't receive them. If you sent one back with a student and you thought you should have qualified but you did not receive notification, please check to make sure we have it on file.
Sometimes families do not qualify, but they have difficulty paying due to temporary circumstances. I will always work with these families if they need extra time or to make payments while still allowing their students to participate as they pay. I also have community resources who help with lunch bills when I let them know that we have a family in need, and we never release those families' names. We appreciate these people greatly. They have donated over $1000 this year alone toward meal bills to assist families who needed extra help through a rough time.
However, most of our lunch bills over $50 are due to parents not being aware they need to deposit money; when I notify them, they take care of the bills quickly. With our new student information system, we have not been able to send notification letters like we have in the past. We are working on this feature and hope to be able to do this within the next couple of weeks. By posting a reminder on our media accounts, most parents are reminded and take care of this. Again, if they cannot, I work with them on a plan to catch up while their student remains eligible.
If you need assistance with meal bills and are not eligible for free or reduced meals, please do not hesitate to reach out to me so we can work together to solve the issue. I do need communication from you, so please call or email.
Thank you,
Dr. Spencer
