Schools Not Yet Penalized For Unpaid Lunches
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City officials are holding off on a plan to penalize individual schools when parents fall behind on making school lunch payments.
Under city policy, elementary and middle school students are still provided lunch even if they do not have the money for it, costing the Department of Education $7 million.
The city was going to start taking those unpaid lunch fees out of each school’s individual budget, but agency officials now say they are delaying that plan after hearing complaints from principals.
“We’ve been in contact with so many of them, and they are trying so hard, that we are going to try to renew our efforts to work with them and make another attempt to try to get the parents to pay this money,” said Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm.
The cost of a school lunch is $1.50, although 74 percent of city students qualify for free or reduced lunches based on their family’s income.