The Simpson County School Board got stuck with a $16,000 tab for unpaid meals.
Student meals that were not paid for at the end of the school year left an unpaid balance of $16,000. That is in addition to students who receive free or reduced lunch. The funds to pay for the shortage for meals came from the student activity funds.
According to School District Accountant Joanna Maddox, the food service coordinator for the district, there are even more parents who would probably qualify for the assistance programs but refuse to fill out the required paperwork so their children can qualify for the programs.
The board looked at several options before adopting one that allows elementary students one unpaid breakfast and one unpaid lunch before they go to an alternate meal for food.
In Simpson County free or reduced costs meals is a big ticket item. There are a total of 3,970 students enrolled in Simpson County Schools. Of that total 2,807 students recieve free meals and 374 get reduced cost meals. There are 789 that pay the full price for meals. This means that of the students enroll this many families qualify for government assistance and the school district receives funding based on the number of students who qualify.
In elementary the child will be allowed a cumulative total of 10 alternate meals and in grades 5 through 12 they will be allowed a cumulative total of five alternate meals.
The alternate meal is an uncrustable whole grain bread sandwich of soy butter and jelly. Also there will be an option of a fruit or vegetable from the regular menu and one milk.
Following repetitive prompting by school board member Lillie Hardy, Superintendent Greg Paes assured the board there would no children going hungry as long as he was superintendent. Hardy said that was the point she was trying to get to that no children were going to go hungry despite what policy the board chose to adopt.
There are some safeguards that were agreed to by the board before the program is implemented. The board agreed that if a child had to go on the alternate meal program the parents and or guardian would be notified immediately to ensure there were no emergency issues keeping the child from having money for lunch and or breakfast.
If a child goes over the approved aloted number of days no meals will be served to them according to the new policy. The county currently operates under a “no charge” policy for school meals.
It was stated that once a student had gone through the approved alternate meals they would they be required bring lunch from home. According to information provided by Maddox, Federal Regulations do not require the schools to provide meals for children who have forgotten lunch money.
In addition to losing their lunches students will also loss their ability to participate in extra-curricular activities to include: sports, cheerleading, club activities including field trips, proms, dances or other outside school activities.
In other business the school board approved the transfer of Mendenhall’s principal Dr. Robert Sanders from his position of principal to the position of Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Secondary Curriculum. The position will move replace the director of human resources as well as bringing other responsibilites back to central office. The pay for the position is $94,630 annually.
