Email that we owe meal money?

[Anonymous]

My child is in pk4 in a school where the pk4 kids don't get to go to the lunch area so lunches are pre ordered by the teacher in the morning. The email says my child has a balance. We don't even have a lunch account as I've packed her lunch every day this year and I declined to open one and filled out the form that said she would not get hot lunch.

So in short, she has no access to surreptitiously but lunch. How would we have a bal due when this is the case?

[Anonymous]

Ask. Maybe it was a mistake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is in pk4 in a school where the pk4 kids don't get to go to the lunch area so lunches are pre ordered by the teacher in the morning. The email says my child has a balance. We don't even have a lunch account as I've packed her lunch every day this year and I declined to open one and filled out the form that said she would not get hot lunch.

So in short, she has no access to surreptitiously but lunch. How would we have a bal due when this is the case?

I could have just written the same thing except my son is in kindergarten. I have made lunch every day this year and don't even know how to order lunch if it were possible. Now I need to figure out who to ask

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in pk4 in a school where the pk4 kids don't get to go to the lunch area so lunches are pre ordered by the teacher in the morning. The email says my child has a balance. We don't even have a lunch account as I've packed her lunch every day this year and I declined to open one and filled out the form that said she would not get hot lunch.

So in short, she has no access to surreptitiously but lunch. How would we have a bal due when this is the case?

I could have just written the same thing except my son is in kindergarten. I have made lunch every day this year and don't even know how to order lunch if it were possible. Now I need to figure out who to ask

How about call the main number of the school and speak to someone in the office

[Anonymous]

My kid dropped his lunch a couple times and had to eat the school lunch. I had to set up an account to pay it. Annoying at the time but NBD in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Why are you asking people who don't even know what school your kid goes to? Call the office and ask them.

[Anonymous]

You need to contact the people in charge of your cafeteria. They screw this up ALL THE TIME at my school because they just guess which child is which and often mix up one little girl with another.

[Anonymous]

Of course I plan to call, they conveniently sent the email after business hours, followed almost immediately by a robo call telling me the same thing.

Was just wondering if anyone else had dealt with this and what you had to do to resolve.

And again, I don't even have a lunch account, so my kid should not be able to be charged through an account we don't have.

[Anonymous]

Every child in DCPS has a "lunch account". It's recorded under their student ID number. You can now set up an access to pay for the negative balance or not, place money on the balance or not. There are a whole host of reasons you may have a (negative) balance towards your child's "account" (i.e. booked to your child's ID), including mistakes and mishaps. Yes, indeed could be that your child's lunch was dropped and someone graciously replaced it with the school lunch, could be a bagged lunch for a field trip. Could be that your child decided to get in the lunch line one day and try. Or, as meals are served family style in PreK classrooms, maybe your child reached for the bowl of something she/he wanted to try or felt left out of. Wouldn't that be a totally okay reason to pay for lunch? Could be a mistake, taking one for another, punching in the wrong number etc. I would ask the teacher first to rule out the sort of mishaps others mentioned. And then check with the lunch staff to see what may have happened. If the balance is minor, then why not just pay up and maybe place $20 or so on the balance, NBD as someone else mentioned. There may be a whole host of situations when you might be grateful that there is a balance to draw from. It carries over from year to year. Just make sure you don't have it fed automatically, as those flat fees are exorbitant on small amounts.

[Anonymous]

I got a robocall saying that my ds's account is $20 negative. He gets milk at 35 cents a day, so I don't think that's true. I think the mylunchmoney people make lots of mistakes.

[Anonymous]

I have been getting these calls/emails and my child has never once had a school lunch. I've tried to fix it at school but they don't have access to the accounts. I've called the main number and can't ever get a human. It's impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you asking people who don't even know what school your kid goes to? Call the office and ask them.

Because the real point of the thread is to tell us that s/he packs a lunch everyday.



Otherwise PP would have asked a fellow parent, PTA exec or school office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been getting these calls/emails and my child has never once had a school lunch. I've tried to fix it at school but they don't have access to the accounts. I've called the main number and can't ever get a human. It's impossible.

I have the same problem. I ended last year with a significant positive balance for my child because she stopped wanting hot lunch right after I put a bunch of money on her account. I have been getting emails for a long time, I call the number, they never return my call, then I get another email. The cycle continues.

Today they texted me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been getting these calls/emails and my child has never once had a school lunch. I've tried to fix it at school but they don't have access to the accounts. I've called the main number and can't ever get a human. It's impossible.

I have the same problem. I ended last year with a significant positive balance for my child because she stopped wanting hot lunch right after I put a bunch of money on her account. I have been getting emails for a long time, I call the number, they never return my call, then I get another email. The cycle continues.

Today they texted me.

PP here. I should ahve aded she has not purchased lunch one day this year.

[Anonymous]

Go into the school and talk to the person in charge in the school cafeteria. Obviously avoid lunch time, but they are likely the best person to answer the wurstion and clrar up the issue quickly. Unlikely to be near a phone while they are preparing meals.