Meal Charging Policy
The USDA requires the development of a meal charging policy for all schools. The USDA encourages the adoption of meal charging policies that allow children to receive the nutrition they need to stay focused during the school day, minimize identification of children with insufficient funds to pay for school meals, and to maintain the financial integrity of the nonprofit school food service account.
Hillsdale Local Schools has developed the following policy regarding meal charges.
We understand that occasionally, students are unable to pay for their lunch and/or breakfast at the time of service. Breakfast and lunch may be charged when needed.
Permitted Food Items
- Students will be allowed to charge a regular meal only.
- Extra items such as second lunches, juices, water, chips, ice cream, etc. will have to be paid for at the time of service and cannot be charged.
Charge Limit
Parents and guardians will be notified when student meal accounts have a negative balance.
We have in place a charge limit equal to the cost of 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches.
Once a student reaches the charge limit, a nutritious, compliant meal will be provided to the student. Our students will never be denied a meal, but it is important that the charges be paid promptly.
Payments
We encourage all families to set up an account on payschoolscentral.com to monitor their student’s meal account.
- You can use Pay Schools to set up low balance alerts free of charge.
- You can also add money to student accounts as one-time payments, or
- Set up auto-replenishment to automatically refill meal accounts when they are running low, if you wish, for a small fee.
Payments can also be made by check or cash at the school.