Schuylkill Haven School District officials are discussing ways to deal with students who fail to pay lunch bills, repair costs for school-issued computers and other financial obligations.
At the Oct. 12 school board meeting, district business manager Kimberly Umphrey said the families of several students are refusing to pay for lunch or fill out an application for free lunches.
“We try 8 million times to do what we can to help, but they just refuse,” Umphrey said, “so the debt continues to climb.”
Umphrey said the district doesn’t want to give an alternate lunch to students who don’t pay, despite the state Department of Education allowing districts to take that step.
Superintendent Dr. Shawn Fitzpatrick said that in principle, the district is not obligated to provide the same quality of meals to students who refuse to pay or seek aid, but doing so isn’t feasible.
“I look at them (alternative lunches) as lunch shaming,” said Patty Daley, district cafeteria manager.
Daley said three students have racked up more than $75 in debt since 2019, and all efforts to get parents to pay have failed, including sending the debts to collection agencies.
“We’ve had parents refuse to pay since they (students) have been in kindergarten,” Umphrey said, “so we’re not sure what else to do … if they set up a payment plan or get a (free) lunch application filled out we’ll work with them … but at this point, people just totally ignore us.”
Officials also noted that 11 students failed to return their laptop computers last year, costing the district $3,000, in addition to another $3,000 or more in unpaid repair bills.
Daley said the state Department of Education’s recommendation is to bar students who accumulate $75 or more in debt from participating in sports and other extracurricular activities.
“The last thing we want to do is to take away sports or activities, but we think this could be a spark to say, let’s at least start paying your bill,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick said that in November administrators would present the board with a formal policy recommendation for how to deal with delinquent bills.
Middle school movies
Also at the meeting, middle school principal gave an update on plans to have the middle school auditorium double as a movie theater.
A projector is being installed, and the curtains will have to be replaced to meet fire safety standards at a cost of $23,000, but the theater is on track to show movies this holiday season.
Officials said the district plans to host community movie nights in the 450-seat auditorium, at a fee of around $5 per person.
Source: Berkshire mont
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