Lake Washington School District Meal Charge Procedure
LWSD’s Nutrition Services Department takes pride in providing nutritious meals to students to support learning each school day. It is the responsibility of parents or guardians to prepay for school meals, provide a meal from home, or complete an annual application establishing eligibility for free or reduced price meals.
Under no circumstance do we want a child to go without a meal during the school day. Students will be allowed to debit their school meal account for the purchase of a complete breakfast or lunch when their account shows insufficient funds or when the student does not have sufficient funds in the form of cash or a check. The purchase of ala carte items including 2nd entrees, milk or juice and snacks are strictly prohibited when an account is negative or will become negative due to the charge.
Adults are not allowed to charge a meal or purchase any ala carte items if they have a negative balance on their account or will become negative due to the charge.
Nutrition Services will make every effort to communicate with families the status of their student’s low and negative meal account balances through the following efforts:
Accounts with low balances of $10 or less:
- Families will receive an automated email message twice a week (Mondays & Wednesdays) regarding their child’s meal account balance.
- Families who utilize MySchoolBucks to manage their child’s account can set alerts that will notify you when an account balance reaches a certain point. This is managed strictly by the parent.
Accounts with negative balances:
- Families will receive an automated phone call and an email message three times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays) regarding their child’s meal account balance. Notifications will continue until account balance is paid off.
- Families will receive a personal phone call from the Nutrition Services Office once their child’s balance reaches a negative $15.
- If the child’s account balance continues to remain negative after these attempts, Nutrition Services will contact the school designee who will connect with the families to problem solve ways to resolve the negative balance issue.
- Unresolved negative balances at the end of the year will be submitted to the Accounting office for collection.
We strongly encourage families to complete the School Meal Benefit application annually to determine if they qualify for free or reduced priced meals. The School Meal Benefit application may be completed throughout the school year if a family’s income changes. The School Meal Benefit application is available here.
Families are encouraged to enroll in the online prepayment service www.myschoolbucks.com for meal account payments and account tracking. There is a convenience fee for this payment service, however, there is no fee associated with account balance inquires through MySchoolBucks.
Families should contact Nutrition Services for the following:
- If you do not want your child to purchase a meal once their account is negative or if you want to restrict the purchase of a la carte foods, an alert can be placed on their student’s account.
- If you need assistance with payment options to address school meal charges.
- Questions regarding negative school meal balances.
Nutrition Services
Phone:425-936-1393
Office Hours: Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Revised: 8/7/2017