Kids who don’t have money in their school lunch account in the Minot Public Schools have been getting a peanut butter or cheese sandwich in a paper bag instead of the regular school lunch.

The school board formally updated its meal charging procedure at a January board meeting.

Under the policy, which Supt. Mark Vollmer said had already been used in practice, the school system will allow kids to charge up to $15 on their lunch account before they will be given the “alternate meal.”

Vollmer said the policy was adopted to keep expenses as low as possible for everyone in the district.

He said school officials also make every effort to contact the child’s parents about the outstanding lunch debt.

Under the policy, parents are given 15 days to pay the debt and then the debt could e rolled over or referred to collections. The district might also use an alternative funding source such as federal grants or charitable donations to offset the cost of unpaid lunches. Children can also be prevented from participating in fee-based extracurriculars until the school lunch bill has been paid. The policy also notes that “Nothing in this procedure prohibits school district personnel from reporting suspected abuse or neglect of a student as required by law.”

Vollmer and food services director Ivy Thorson said cafeteria workers are discreet about serving kids the alternate meals. They are served in paper bags so it looks like the child brought his or her lunch from home. If a child made it through the lunch line and was served the regular school lunch, Vollmer said staff would not take the meal away.

“It’s never the goal to humiliate (the child),” said Vollmer.

Lower-income families might qualify for free or reduced price school lunches. Vollmer urged struggling families to fill out an application if they are having difficulty paying for a child’s school lunch bill. He said parents whose incomes are too high to qualify for free and reduced price meals but are still having trouble paying the lunch bill should still talk to the principal at their children’s schools and see if something can be worked out.

In most of these cases, the parents simply forgot to pay the past due lunch bill, said food service director Ivy Thorson. She said there were only about 18 “non-reimbursable meals” served to kids in the Minot Public Schools in January so it is a fairly rare occurrence.

Vollmer said Thursday he has been contacted by some businesses and groups that are interested in making a donation to pay the unpaid lunch bills for families. He said the district would accept those offers.

According to news reports, an anonymous donor paid off more than $28,000 in school lunch debt for students in the Fargo Public Schools. The Fargo school board recently updated its policy so that lunch debt will no longer be forwarded to a collection agency and parents won’t have to worry about being referred to social services over the lunch debt, according to a press release from the ACLU, which also is advocating for a greater effort to address the problem of school lunch debt.

“U.S. policy too often punishes and criminalizes people struggling with poverty, even inside school buildings where children are supposed to be nurtured and kept safe,” Dane DeKrey, advocacy director for the ACLU in North Dakota, said in a press release on Thursday. “Soliciting donations to cover school lunch debt isn’t exactly a sustainable solution.”