Has Your Kid Ever Been Denied Lunch At School?

A parent said her son was recently refused lunch—for the second time—due to a lack of funds in his cafeteria account.

Apparently, her son was informed he had only $3.25 remaining in his account last week on Thursday, which he thought would be sufficient enough to cover the costs of his lunch the next day, a Friday, so he never mentioned it to his mother.

But then on Friday he was denied lunch because, apparently, $3.25 wasn't enough to cover the cost.

"This is the second time this school year this has happened," the parent said. "The first time, other students shared their lunch with him, but this second time, nobody did."

She said she is extremely shocked that the school would refuse a student lunch.

"At the very least, a peanut-butter-and-jelly lunch has been offered in the past," she said. "There needs to be a better system to alert parents if the account is low. Otherwise, how would we know if the account needs to be replenished?"

Montclair School Board President Shelly Lombard said that she plans to put the issue on the agenda of the board's next meeting.

"On one hand we don't want to deny lunch to kids whose accounts are only a bit overdrawn," she said. "On the other hand we have some accounts that are overdrawn by hundreds of dollars.

"We need to look at our policy on overdrawn accounts and train the food service staff so that they apply the policy consistently," she added. "I will put it on the agenda for an upcoming meeting."

Chartwells, the Montclair School District's new food service provider this year, apologized to the Glenfield parent for not serving her son lunch.

In am email the company said that: "We are still using the Nutrikids website, www.mynutrikids.com, so you can monitor your child's cafeteria account. This site allows you to view their food and snack selections, along with their balance, and gives you the ability to pay online. You may still continue to send in checks to the school. However, you may use the 'low balance alert' with NO charge. The online payment has a convenience fee attached but the other features are a service with NO charge."

According to Chartwells, all a parent needs to do to set up a Nutrikids account is to enter their zip code, email address, child's student ID number, and child's initials.

In short, the company said that use of the Nutrikids website is the best way for a parent to monitor their child's cafeteria account.