I encourage all families to regularly check your students account balance through the parent portal or by calling the office. I know that paying for lunch and breakfast is not something that has happened the last couple of years so getting back into that habit will take some time. However, we do not want anyone to get so far behind that payment becomes difficult or that we have to start offering an alternative lunch for students with an excessive negative balance per our board policy. Once a student reaches a negative account balance of $40.00, an alternative lunch will be provided to the student that consists of an uncrustable, milk, and fruit. Parents can always check their account balance through their parent portal on the Teacherease website or the Teacherease app. If you do not have a login for the parent portal and would like one, please call Mr. Prugh at the office to set one up. We can also provide you with instructions on how to view your account balance or make online payments.
Notifications of negative balances are sent home through email and hard copy letter weekly.
Remember, you may resubmit a free and reduced lunch application at any time. If your family has had a change in income that may qualify your student to receive free or reduced meals at school, contact the office for a new application. If you haven't submitted an application for free or reduced meals, we encourage you to do so at your earliest convenience.
We are now set up to accept online payments for lunch accounts. To make a payment into your students account go to teacherease.com. On the left side of the screen you will see one of the boxes has a dollar sign on it and is labeled "fees". When you click on that box it will take you to a screen that shows your students current account balance. Negative account balances are shown inside of parentheses. Positive account balances will not have parentheses. There will be a box on that screen that says "Make Online Payment". Simply follow that process which will ask you how much you would like to deposit and credit card information for the payment. There is a maximum payment amount of $150 for an online payment. Please know that there is a convenience charge when you make a payment online. The charge is equal to 2.9% of the deposit on top of a flat $0.30 fee each time. This is not something that the school collects and makes money off of. The convenience fee is the charge from TeacherEase of collecting the payment and sending it to the school. You may always make payments via cash or check of any amount directly to the office at any time.
As a reminder, the cost of breakfast is $2.00 and lunch is $2.60. These prices reflect the minimum amounts that we are allowed to charge for lunch and breakfast and were set in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education. If your child is eating both meals everyday, then the cost for a week of school is just under $25.00. Your child's account balance will rollover into the next school year if money if they have a positive balance at the end of the year.
As always, if you have any questions contact Mr. Prugh at 573-729-3902 or cprugh@gfr2.k12.mo.us. Thank you.