WE REALIZE FROM TIME TO TIME, WITH BUSY SCHEDULES AND LIVES THAT OCCASIONALLY ANYONE CAN FORGET TO SEND MONEY FOR LUNCH.
SOUTHMORELAND SCHOOL DISTRICT WILL NOT DENY ANY CHILD A LUNCH WHO DOES NOT HAVE FUNDS TO PAY FOR A MEAL.
In conjunction with the passing of Act 55 by the Pennsylvania legislature, school districts are now required to notify parents when negative school lunch balances reach 5 or more meals.
The Southmoreland School District Food Service Department will begin sending negative student account balances to parents/guardians via phone, text and/or email messages. Messages will be sent a minimum of one time per week.
We encourage all parents to also create an account for their child's cafeteria account where they can electronically pay for meals, sign up for low balance emails and monitor daily purchases. The website to do this https://www.schoolcafe.com. Parents also have the option of calling the Food Service Department to put restrictions on their child(ren)'s meal account.
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Click here for a copy of Southmoreland School District Meal Charging Policy.
Act 55 of 2017 is a new Pennsylvania law making significant changes to the Pennsylvania Public School Code, and was enacted on November 6, 2017. Among its various amendments was a revision to Section 1337 prohibiting schools from denying a school food program meal to any student who requests one but does not have the money to pay for the meal at the time of service or in his or her meal account. Based on this change, schools may only withhold meals from a student if they receive written direction from a parent or guardian.
Under the amendment to Section 1337, communication about a student’s school meal debt must be directed to the parent/guardian, not to the student. The amendment provides that such communication must occur when the student owes money for five or more meals. The school must then make at least two attempts to reach the parent or guardian. Southmoreland School District will be utilizing various methods as they have in the past to reach out to parents concerning negative account balances for students. Some of these methods will include personal or school messenger phone calls, school messenger texts and emails, and/or letters from the Food Service Department.
The amendment to Section 1337 also states that schools cannot publicly identify or stigmatize students because they have a school meal debt. Likewise, students cannot be made to do chores or other work to earn a school meal. Lastly, the amendment prohibits schools from directing a student to discard a meal that has been served to them because they cannot pay for it at the time of service or because they have an existing school meal debt.
The effective date of these requirements is December 6, 2017.
