Clintonville updates policy

By Bert Lehman

The Clintonville School Board has updated the district’s food services policy on how the district handles negative meal balances for students in the district.

The board approved the second reading of the updated policy at its March 27 meeting.

The policy was updated for elementary, middle and high school students.

For elementary school students, the policy was amended to read, “Students PK-5 will be permitted to receive breakfast, snack, and lunch with a negative account balance.”

For middle school and high school students, the policy was amended to read, “Students 6-12 will not be permitted to receive a breakfast or lunch if their Food Service account has a balance exceeding negative twenty-five dollars (-$25).”

The policy was also amended to include, “Any family balance exceeding negative one hundred dollars (-$100) will be applied as a fine to the eldest child who is an active Clintonville Public School District Student at the end of the school year in accordance with Policy 6152.”

Feb. 13 meeting

The board originally discussed the policy at its Feb. 13 meeting.

At this meeting, Clintonville Superintendent Troy Kuhn talked to the board about negative meal balances that students accumulate. He told the board he didn’t want to make any decisions at the meeting, but asked board members to think about how they want to handle negative meal balances, and discuss it at a future meeting.

Kuhn further explained that one of the things that has changed for school districts since COVID is that now students have to pay to receive breakfast and lunch at school. It was free during the COVID pandemic.

Once a student’s meal balance reaches a certain amount, the district calls one of the student’s parents to inform them about the meal balance, Kuhn said.

“Once it gets to a certain number then Karleen (Brei, the district’s food service manager) makes personal phone calls, sends a letter home,” Kuhn said.

Kuhn said for middle school and high school students, when they know their meal balance is negative, most of the time they won’t even try to get a meal at school.

It’s a similar process for elementary school students. But for elementary school students, Kuhn said if their meal balance drops below a certain dollar amount, they will receive a bagged lunch consisting of a cheese sandwich and a milk. They are charged for only the cheese sandwich and the milk.

“They don’t get charged for what a regular lunch costs,” Kuhn said. “However, they don’t get breakfast, and they wouldn’t get their milk break once they get to a certain level down at elementary.”

Kuhn said school meals are a hot topic around the nation. He added that some school districts feel the district should cover the costs of all student meals, while others feel the costs fall on the parents of the students.

“I know one district, down way south of us, said, ‘Sure, we’ll pay for all the food but you parents can figure out how to get your kids to school because we’re no longer going to bus them,’” Kuhn said.

Kuhn acknowledged that the Clintonville School District can do some things better. He said currently, only one parent receives a phone call, and this can be problematic if parents of a student are no longer together. He said the district is working on creating a system that will call multiple parents.

If a student didn’t pay for any meals from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year, Kuhn said the balance owed to the district would be more than $1,000 per kid.

School counselors do have food available for students, Kuhn said. He added that middle school and high school students know this, but elementary school students may not know this.

“I just don’t want a kid embarrassed,” Kuhn said.

There are people in the community who are willing to donate money to pay negative lunch balances, Kuhn said.

“But then its, which ones do you pay off, and all of those different things as well,” Kuhn said.

Lundt asked why parents aren’t paying on the balance after the school contacts them.

Brei said some say they just forgot to pay. She acknowledged that a lot of times she can’t get a hold of the parents, in which case she leaves a message.

Kuhn told the board that Brei isn’t doing anything wrong.

“She’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing,” Kuhn said.

March 24 meeting

During the discussion at the March 24 school board meeting, Lindsay Norder, business manager for the Clintonville School District, said there is a process for a family to go through if they want to apply for the district to waive the meal fees for their children.

She added that the only person in the district who can tell her to waive meal fees for a family is Brei, because she is the only person in the district with access to that information. It is set up this way to prevent others from finding out who has had meal fees waived.

“There is nobody that should know, other than Karleen,” Norder said.

Lundt asked if the district considered accepting donations to cover the cost of school meals.

Regarding donations, Norder said she doesn’t recall the district receiving any donations to pay for school meals.

Board President Ben Huber said it’s been a few years since such donations have been received.

Kuhn added that he has received some inquiries this year about such donations, but donations were never actually received.

“If somebody would donate, I would tell Karleen, ‘Here’s X number of dollars, you apply it where you feel it needs to go,’ Norder said. “I wouldn’t want anything to do with that.”

Lundt asked how much in donations would be needed to get rid of all the negative food service balances for students in the district.

Norder said a report could be run to determine that number. She updated the board at its April 10 meeting, telling the board that the total dollar amount of negative meal accounts is ever-changing, but on March 28 the total of negative meal balances for students was negative $2,044.