Dinner money arrears

[Snowsquonk]

Hello dear Mumsnetters

I am chair of governors of a primary school where we have a problem with people not paying for school dinners - a culture has been created in which most parents pay, those who can't afford are encouraged to apply for free school meals, but a small number of parents just take the mickey.

The trouble is, we say a child cannot have any more school dinners until arrears are paid off or an agreement for paying off the arrears is reached - but some parents then still send the child in without a packed lunch.

SO - what happens at your school - we are considering a policy where if a parent has not paid for a meal in advance, the child does not get one but this is primary and I don't think it's good for children to have nothing - how would you feel if your child was given a basic meal - eg, bread and butter and a piece of fruit instead of the full hot meal option - if you'd not booked and paid for the meal in advance.

What happens at your school?

Cheers!

We had to give another contact-very difficult as I was new to the area and knew no one! I had to ask my next door neighbour.

I'm not new to the area but as a widow with no living relatives other than my children I was unable to provide a second contact.

Fair enough- but the bottom line is that you could have been reached in an emergency and the school would have covered, if it was a real hospital emergency, so that you could be with your DC.

I go swimming during the week - can't hear my mobile then! Shall I put myself in front of the firing squad now...

probably if there was someone around to answer the phone

In a school someone would answer the phone eventually -if it was a real medical emergency they would keep ringing.
Probably people have just been lucky and haven't had a frightening phone call-if you have you try and make sure that you are contactable.

mrz - there'd be someone to answer the phone if they weren't spending half the day chasing dinner money arrears

I've had the frightening phone call but it doesn't change circumstances I'm afraid.

Don't have an answer to the lunch money problem but expecting parents to be instantly contactable is a relatively new concept.

When I was at school there were no mobile phones, if children had accidents and the parents couldn't be contacted the school muct have had a procedure to follow and I'm sure schools do now.

It just isn't always possible to be on the end of a phone awaiting a call. I have no second contact for my DCs either - DH works away, often overseas and friends are at work.

Proving that you can't or shouldn't be contacted isn't exactly helpful to OP and it doesn't mean that you can't try and contact them.

Being able to contact someone who has run up that amount of debt isn't going to solve the OPs problem either.

I don't think anyone has said that schools shouldn't try to contact people but tbh I don't think they would be achieving anything be ringing the persistant offenders, they aren't going to change their behaviour.

Everyone agrees that the child shouldn't have to suffer for the sins of the parent but unless the school is prepared to take a hard line and withold food or take legal action I can't see a workable solution for the OP.

exoticfruit - I can see you feel strongly about being contactable but realistically it won't always be possible and that's just a fact of life, you can't always cover every eventuality.

Of course you can't cover any eventuality, but you need to collar the person at some point and put them on the spot.

Been there done that, face to face in fact and the result was no dinner money or packed lunch despite the promise to drop it off at the office later.

Obviously a tricky problem-let us know how you go OP.