2018- 2019 School Year
Students are allowed to charge their lunch (up to $12.00), if they forget their lunch money or have a zero or negative balance on their account. The following procedures should be adhered to whenever a student charges a lunch with Burlington School Food Services.
The individual student will enter their Student ID into PCS key pad and the system will charge them for the price of one lunch. Only reimbursable lunches can be charged (no snacks or a la carte). A reimbursable lunch consists of Meat/Meat Alternative, Grain, Milk, and Fruit & Vegetable. We follow the offer vs serve guidelines which means that a student must take at least three of the five components, one of those choices being a fruit or vegetable.
Remind students of low balance ($5.00 or less) during transactions.
Students will NOT be allowed to charge snacks and beverages. If a student charges a lunch, that student will not be allowed to purchase any “extra” items.
Encourage students to pay back any owed monies the next school day. Work with the Director of Food Services & Principal if there is a problem.
Students, who charge up to -$12.00, receive the same meal as other students. When a student owes more than - $12.00, an alternate lunch consisting of a cold cheese sandwich, fruit, vegetable and milk can be charged (these alternate meals will be charged to the student’s account) at $1.75 per lunch. A lunch tray will be replaced with an alternate lunch. (Do not take a lunch out of a student’s hand if regular lunch has been given.)
Each week, any student who has charged a meal and has not paid back will receive a charge notice to go home to the parent in the student’s back pack for the manager of the cafeteria. Letters will be printed monthly from the district and sent in the mail.
If there is no payment, the Manager will notify the Director of Food Services who will assist in contacting the Parent/Guardian for payment. Refund of monies left on student accounts are given only to the parent/guardian of a student no longer enrolled in Burlington Public Schools through the School Food Services Office. Parents are instructed to contact the office at 781-270-1756 with any such request.
Negative balance letters are sent once a month to households via mail.
We are part of the educational environment at Burlington Public Schools. Although students must learn to be responsible for having their lunch money, we need to be supportive to our customers. It is the students’ responsibility to remind their parents to give them lunch money or replenish their PayPams account. However, we realize that it is the parent that is responsible for the student meal charge and this can cause a difficult situation between the staff and student. According to the USDA, we are legally obligated to collect any funds from a served reimbursable lunch but we are not legally obligated to serve a reimbursable lunch that is not paid for. However, we must consider our customers and use the utmost courtesy while managing this process. It is important to have open communication between the student, the parent, the Director of Food Services and the Principal.