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Unfortunately, for some children the only fully nutritious meal of the day comes during lunch at school. Parents either can't afford to feed their children balanced meals at home or are too bogged down with the busy aspects of life to cook such meals.
Schools are first and foremost in the business of preparing our children for adulthood. But over the years, an additional task has been feeding kids so they are in the right frame of mind to learn later in the day. In the Washington County School District, for only $1.60 per day, elementary school kids can eat lunch. An additional 80 cents allows them to eat breakfast. For children in intermediate, middle and high schools, the cost is $2.25 per day for lunch and 80 cents for breakfast.
Those are extremely economical rates, with more assistance available for families who can't afford those amounts. And school lunch workers do a good job each day of providing nutritious, tasty meals.
Unfortunately, the process isn't very friendly for parents. If a child goes to the lunch line in high school and discovers he or she doesn't have lunch money in his or her account, a quick call to a parent will allow mom or dad to go to a website and pay the fee. Students in middle, intermediate or elementary school - kids who can't fend as well for themselves and who often forget that they need lunch money - can't be helped in that way. Parents can call in and give debit card information for middle school students. But parents of children in intermediate or elementary school must write a check or go directly to the school to pay the fee, a process that could leave the child without the opportunity to get lunch that day.
This isn't a rebuke of the Washington County School District for requiring kids to pay for their meals. After all, families that can pay should do so. But in today's technical world, it seems that there should be a mechanism for paying online.
There may be an additional cost involved. And it's only fair that the school district not get stuck paying processing fees. But that fee could get passed on as part of the cost for paying online.
Many parents would be willing to pay for convenience, particularly if it allows their kids to satisfy their hunger at lunchtime.