2024-2025 Meal Charge Procedure
Overview
The Richardson Independent School District recognizes that adequate nutrition is essential to students’ mental, physical and academic growth. All children in grades Pre-K through 12 participating in the School Breakfast Program (SBP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), whether at a free, reduced, or paid rate, will receive a breakfast and/or lunch meal, regardless of whether the students have sufficient money in the meal-charge accounts or cash-in-hand to pay for the cost of the meal at the time of the service.
Purpose:
Procedure Goals:
- To treat all students and families with dignity and respect.
- To establish a consistent District procedure regarding charges and collection of charges.
- To encourage parents and guardians to assume the responsibility of meal payments and to promote self-responsibility of the student.
- To support positive interactions with District staff, students and parents/guardians to the maximum extent possible and to ensure compliance with District policies and local, state, or federal mandates.
Responsibilities:
Parents/Guardians
Parents/Guardians are responsible for paying for all of their student’s meal charges. All meal charges eaten before a free or reduced-price meal application is processed or approved are the responsibility of the parent and must be paid for in a timely manner. Parents are encouraged to use schoolcafe.com/RICHARDSONISD to pay for meals and/or to track purchases made by their student(s). Payment can also be made in cash or check at the student’s school. Parents who wish to prohibit or limit their students from charging meals, can contact the Child Nutrition Department and request that the student account be flagged for no debiting.
Child Nutrition Department
The Child Nutrition Kitchen Manager is responsible for maintaining charge records and notifying the student’s parent/guardian of outstanding balances. Negative balance slips will be printed weekly and given to the school office to be sent home with the student to notify the parent/guardian. This can also be done electronically to the E-mail provided to the District. Kitchen Managers may call parents directly to notify them of unpaid student meal balances. Calls on delinquent accounts are also made to families from the District to notify them of the negative balance.
The Child Nutrition Department is responsible for providing meals that meet the School Breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program (NSLP) requirements to all students. If a student has insufficient funds in his/her student account and does not have adequate money in hand to cover the cost of the meal at the time of service, the student will be given the meal of their choice and the cost will be charged against the student’s account. Cashiers may not use the student’s cash in hand to repay charges if the student intends to purchase that day’s meal. No charges will be allowed for extras or a la carte items on any negative account or accounts with a zero balance.
School District
The School District will support the Child Nutrition Department in debt collection activities. Federal guidelines prohibit the Child Nutrition Department from writing off debts as a result of charged meals. Every effort will be made to collect for unpaid meals. While not all inclusive, these measures may include the following:
- An automated telephone call to the parent/guardian
- An email sent to the parent/guardian
- Kitchen Manager contacting parent(s) by phone
- Kitchen Manager sending notices to the school office to go home with students weekly
School meal status is treated as a confidential matter and should not be a consideration for families considering applying for assistance.
This procedure for unpaid meal charges is designed to ensure that all students who want to eat a school meal receive a meal without impediment(s). This procedure should be reviewed with all school-level staff, including school nurses, school counselors, principals, assistant principals and other administrators.