Tulsa Public Schools officials say the district will continue to zero out students’ unpaid meal charges at the end of each school year, despite a recent change in state policy that allows school districts to carry those negative balances into the next year.
However, TPS students’ unpaid meal balances were already cleared by the end of the 2016-17 school year thanks to community support and the USDA’s Community Eligibility Provision, which made all TPS elementary students eligible to receive free breakfast and lunch this year.
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TPS has a charge limit of $8.40, meaning that when students’ meal accounts are near or have reached that negative balance, cafeteria workers are instructed to notify those students’ parents or guardians and encourage them to complete a free and reduced-cost meal application, TPS Child Nutrition Services Director Kit Hines said.
“The goal of the program is never to embarrass students. So many times that balance may go above $8.40,” Hines said.
Hines said cafeteria staff undergo annual training before the start of the school year to review the charge procedure and discuss how to avoid “lunch shaming.” Students with negative balances at many Oklahoma school districts get an alternate meal, usually a cold cheese sandwich and milk, a visible signal to their classmates that they lack lunch money.
“You always have to protect the dignity of the students,” Hines said.
TPS does offer an alternative meal for students whose meal charges pass that limit, but Hines believes cafeteria workers often provide those students regular meals.
One reason she said it’s evident that cafeteria staff continue to provide regular meals to students after they’ve passed the charge limit is that the school district’s total amount of negative meal balances was between $5,000 and $6,000 at the end of the 2015-16 school year.
Hines said she doesn’t envision the district changing its practice of clearing the negative balances at the end of the school year.
“That’s such a small portion of our operating budget — it just wouldn’t be fair to families at all,” Hines said.
One of the donors that helped clear students’ unpaid balances this past school year was First Christian Church, which gave $2,885 to TPS to cover unpaid balances in the spring, according to TPS.
First Christian Church associate minister Rev. Cassie Sexton-Riggs said the church’s congregation in April decided to donate the money in an effort to help ensure students would be well fed around the time they were taking state assessments.
“Education is the stepping stone out of poverty,” Sexton-Riggs said. “So if we can help kids — make sure they’re getting good meals and getting a better education — then maybe we can change the narrative of what their adult life might be like.”
Sexton-Riggs said the church would consider making a similar donation in the future.
“It’s just a small thing,” she said. “But if lots of people are doing small things in that way, what kind of difference could we make with hunger issues, with educational issues, with changing how the city of Tulsa works and lives?”
Rather than TPS changing its practices so that its Child Nutrition Services Office no longer clears unpaid meal balances at the end of the school year, Hines said she hopes more students’ families will complete free and reduced-cost meal applications. Those applications for the 2017-18 school year will be available on the TPS website in August.
Hines added that the school district is hiring cafeteria assistants and cooks and encourages those interested to complete an application available on the TPS website.
