Board reviews school lunch and wellness policies after parental questions about a la carte charging
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Summary
Board members discussed proposed updates to the school lunch policy and wellness policy; parents raised concerns that students can scan cards to charge a la carte items, and administrators said meal charging rules limit a la carte purchases when accounts lack funds and that schools will better communicate procedures to families.
Board members and staff addressed parental questions about school lunch procedures and broader wellness policy revisions during the July 30 meeting of the Rockville Center Board of Education.
A board member asked why elementary students can scan lunch cards and charge a la carte items without parental approval, describing a hypothetical large charge for chocolate milk. The board member said some parents are surprised by the ability to charge items and asked whether scanning requires parental permission.
A staff member from the district lunch office responded that parents can contact the lunch office to place restrictions on a student's account (for example, "no chocolate milk" or no a la carte purchases) and that cashless scanning and account flags are used to enforce those limits. The staff member said that policy allows cafeterias to provide a meal even if a student lacks sufficient funds but that a la carte items should not be provided when an account balance is zero.
Board action and follow up Board members asked administration to improve family communications before school starts, including adding clear guidance to welcome packets and messaging at Back‑to‑School and Meet‑the‑Teacher events. The administration said it will add a note about account restrictions to the school lunch welcome packet and include information in principals' opening communications.
Wellness policy Trustees asked the administration to hold the draft wellness policy at Stage 1 review for additional editing because it had not been revised since 2007, the document was lengthy, and some redundancies and grammatical issues needed cleanup. A board member also suggested removing personal email addresses from policy text and replacing them with a generic address to avoid future maintenance issues.
Ending The administration agreed to revise communication materials and bring the wellness policy back in September for further review; the school lunch policy was being updated to reflect current New York state food service regulations and will move forward through the policy process.