My school bucks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our principal said that field trip fees would be paid this way so that teachers don’t have to deal with money. The fee annoys me.

That's a different site, School Cash Online. My School Bucks is just for lunch money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You pay the fee for school bucks so the school doesn't have to. Theoretically, the money MCPS saves from that should be going to the students/teachers in some form.

Theoretically.

MySchoolBucks is a private, for-profit company. They make money (a lot of money!) by offering this service.

Your MCPS school is not seeing any of this money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do I need to sign up for this if my kid doesn't eat school lunch?

No you don't, but if you can afford it, you might want to put a small amount of money in the account, as an emergency "just in case". For example, I know one kid who brought a lunch, but some water spilled on the bag and ruined the lunch. Or if you forget to pack one or the child forgets to bring it. I've seen many cases where it helps to have a few bucks so that in an emergency, you child can pick up the lunch.

In our school, it is like $2.50 for a lunch, so I usually keep about $10-20 in our kids' accounts "just in case". At the end of the school year, if there is any left, I contact the school coordinator and have them divert the balance to help pay off some of the overdue balances that some families have left.

+1

And sometimes my kid just gets hungry and wants to get a bag of popcorn or something for lunch.

They will let kids go into debt at my school but it's nice to not have it be an issue.

Such a good idea about what to do with the leftover money. I have a bunch in my other kids' account and I'm going to do that. Can you do it at the beginning of the year or does it make more sense to wait to the end?

[Anonymous]

Anyone having trouble with the app? I can’t sign in. It immediately signs me out and says error. I deleted and reinstalled and still can’t make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone having trouble with the app? I can’t sign in. It immediately signs me out and says error. I deleted and reinstalled and still can’t make it work.

Is the web site working on a computer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone having trouble with the app? I can’t sign in. It immediately signs me out and says error. I deleted and reinstalled and still can’t make it work.

Is the web site working on a computer?

The website works. The app does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We always send in a check with my kid made out to the school cafeteria for this reasons

Who does the kid give it to? I have a young child at a Title 1 school and the teacher doesn’t communicate things like this. My kid would like to buy school lunch on Friday pizza day

[Anonymous]

Send a check, save your $2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We always send in a check with my kid made out to the school cafeteria for this reasons

Who does the kid give it to? I have a young child at a Title 1 school and the teacher doesn’t communicate things like this. My kid would like to buy school lunch on Friday pizza day

Tell them to drop it off in the office and give it to a secretary, they’ll figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We always send in a check with my kid made out to the school cafeteria for this reasons

Who does the kid give it to? I have a young child at a Title 1 school and the teacher doesn’t communicate things like this. My kid would like to buy school lunch on Friday pizza day

Tell them to drop it off in the office and give it to a secretary, they’ll figure it out.

I would send checks in in an envelope labeled "Cafeteria Manager"

[Anonymous]

Ugh now the website isn’t working and my kid will runout of money by wednesday. I am so done with these people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh now the website isn’t working and my kid will runout of money by wednesday. I am so done with these people.

Send in a check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh now the website isn’t working and my kid will runout of money by wednesday. I am so done with these people.

You can run a balance. They will send a bill home with your child. I always write a check and send it back in with the invoice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just pay the fee you stingy freeloaders! It’s less than two bucks that goes towards running the school that your kid attends! You’re probably posting from a $1000 device

No, that’s not true. The school doesn’t get the money from this! The company gets it. I’d rather donate $50 directly to my school’s media center than have some random corporation get $2 from every parent. Not about being stingy.

My understanding is that the $1.95 fee is the charge for using a credit card. If you send cash or check to the cafeteria and they do not incur credit card fees, then there is no fee passed on to the family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do I need to sign up for this if my kid doesn't eat school lunch?

No you don't, but if you can afford it, you might want to put a small amount of money in the account, as an emergency "just in case". For example, I know one kid who brought a lunch, but some water spilled on the bag and ruined the lunch. Or if you forget to pack one or the child forgets to bring it. I've seen many cases where it helps to have a few bucks so that in an emergency, you child can pick up the lunch.

In our school, it is like $2.50 for a lunch, so I usually keep about $10-20 in our kids' accounts "just in case". At the end of the school year, if there is any left, I contact the school coordinator and have them divert the balance to help pay off some of the overdue balances that some families have left.

+1

And sometimes my kid just gets hungry and wants to get a bag of popcorn or something for lunch.

They will let kids go into debt at my school but it's nice to not have it be an issue.

Such a good idea about what to do with the leftover money. I have a bunch in my other kids' account and I'm going to do that. Can you do it at the beginning of the year or does it make more sense to wait to the end?

Your school/county coordinator can do it any time you request it. But I would wait until the end of the year in case your child wants to use it. I figure at the end of the school year, it can be used to defer some of the debt on other students' accounts and then when the next school year is about to start up, I go back and load up my kids accounts for the current year.