There are some new changes on the horizon in how school lunches will be handled.

Greene County Schools Superintendent Tim Christensen says last year, the district was required to have a policy of how to handle outstanding student meal debt. Currently, students that reached a certain amount of debt, will either be served an alternative meal if the student is in kindergarten through eighth grade or be denied a meal at the high school level. Christensen notes that they have improved their notification system of when students are close to or have deficit funds and are able to have parents pay that debt. However, he talks about another direction that the district might go for a few outstanding accounts.

“We still have a few people that have not paid bills and just kind of talked briefly to the Board about potentially using a collection agency to kind of maybe straighten out a few of those accounts. We’re going to look at that more, but that’s probably a direction that we’ll go for a few accounts.”

Another change that is set to go into effect for the 2018-19 school year is a new law commonly called the “Lunch Shaming Bill.” The law protects students from being “singled out” for having deficit funds by being served an alternative meal. Christensen explains the struggle he has with the new law.

“I don’t want any kid to feel bad. I understand that ‘shaming’ concept. I also understand that a kid that doesn’t have food in their stomach, isn’t going to perform their best. But at the same time as a school district, you let one eat for free, are you going to let everybody eat for free. It’s a fine line, it’s a challenge.”

The bill also has ways that districts can collect lunch debt, but at this time the specifics haven’t been ironed out.