Changes Possible For 'Inhumane' Cherry Hill School Lunch Policy

CHERRY HILL, NJ — After an outcry from members of the public, the Cherry Hill Public School Board of Education is considering changes to existing policy concerning school lunch debt.

Students who owe $10 or more in back lunch pay would be served the meal of the day, but would be restricted when it came to a la carte items, according to the proposed policy discussed by the board at its workshop meeting Tuesday night.

As a last resort, students who are in debt would also be banned from some extracurricular activities, including prom and non-educational field trips, according to Cherry Hill Public School District spokeswoman Barbara Wilson.

Participation in sports would not be impacted. Students would be permitted to graduate, but they wouldn't be permitted to walk in the commencement ceremony at the end of the year. This would only happen after the district exhausts all avenues for collecting unpaid lunch fees.

The policy previously called for students to be served the tuna fish sandwich lunch if they owed $10, and to be denied school lunch altogether if they owed more than $20. That would no longer be the case under the revisions, which are expected to be formally introduced at the Sept. 24 meeting, Wilson said.

Read more here: Students Who Owe Money May Be Denied Lunch In Cherry Hill Schools

“Everyone will graduate and everyone will be fed,” Assistant Superintendent of Schools Justin Smith said during this week’s meeting.

The district will continue to work with families who find themselves falling behind in paying school lunches, Smith said.

Currently, parents are sent a letter by mail every 10 days they have a lunch debt. That timeline would change, but it was unclear what the new timeline would be.

Phone calls are also made, but no emails are sent to parents. The letters inform parents how to apply for payment plans and free/reduced lunches. Parents can apply for free/reduced lunches at any point during the year, officials said previously.

The district will also continue to work with any family that makes a good faith effort to pay their delinquent lunch bill.

“We always put students first,” Cherry Hill Board of Education President Eric Goodwin said. “This is a good way to make sure students get what they need and still hold people accountable.”

In August, Assistant Superintendent Lynn Shugars suggested the district needed to start following the policy of not providing lunch for students who were more than $20 in debt. The policy has been in place since 2017, but the district never adhered to it.

Shugars said enforcement was needed to prevent what is currently a $14,000 debt in unpaid meals gets even deeper. Critics of the policy called it “inhumane.”

Currently, parents are sent a letter by mail every 10 days they have a lunch debt. That timeline would change, but it was unclear what the new timeline would be.

Phone calls are also made, but no emails are sent to parents. The letters inform parents how to apply for payment plans and free/reduced lunches. Parents can apply for free/reduced lunches at any point during the year, Shugars said.

The district will also continue to work with any family that makes a good faith effort to pay their delinquent lunch bill.

The board will next meet on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 7 p.m. at the Mahlberg Administration Building, 45 Ranoldo Terrace in Cherry Hill.