Unpaid Meals

Lunch Charging Procedures

Meal accounts for students should be consistently funded throughout the school year to avoid students needing to charge for a meal. However, the Board recognizes that an occasional emergency may make it necessary to charge for a meal. Families needing assistance to apply for free or reduced lunch should contact the School Corporation’s Director of Food Service.

The Board’s policy and Superintendent’s procedure related to meal charges shall be distributed to all Corporation staff responsible for policy enforcement, including Corporation food service employees, accounting staff, building principals, and all other staff involved in enforcing any aspect of the meal charge policy. This information can also be found on the school corporation website. 

The Corporation’s meal charging procedure is as follows:

• Significant negative lunch account balances shall not be permitted. A significant negative lunch account balance is any balance owed in excess of $10.00;
• If a student has a significant negative lunch account balance, they shall be provided an alternate meal at a reduced price recommended by the Superintendent or designee, the cost of which shall continue to accrue to his/her negative lunch account balance;
• If a student has a significant negative lunch account balance, the student shall not be permitted to charge any à la carte food or beverage items;
• After accruing $10.00 in meal charges, school cafeteria managers will make two attempts to contact parents/guardians to remind them that their student’s meal account balance is in the negative and that it needs to be paid immediately;
• The building principals or designee will attempt to call parents/guardians to reiterate the school cafeteria manager’s message if parents/guardians have been unresponsive to the manager’s two calls; and
• Unpaid meal balances may be turned over to collections after thirty (30) days.

Information regarding meal payments and balances will be shared with families annually. 

The superintendent may develop administrative guidelines to implement this policy.

Inactive Lunch Accounts

A lunch account becomes inactive after student withdrawal from school. A lunch account becomes inactive after a student withdraws from school. Parents or guardians will be contacted if there is a positive balance and may request a refund, apply the balance to another student or sibling, or transfer funds to the Food Service Donation Account. If no response is received after 6 months, positive balances will transfer to an active sibling’s account when available, or the the Food Service Donation Account if no active sibling is available. 

West Lafayette Community School Corporation

Adopted: January 12, 2026

Revised: [date]