VIENNA — The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education set new standard prices for school lunches in the state. As a result, the Maries R-1 School Board voted to raise prices for the 2023-24 school year to avoid a cost of $2,060 to the district.

The new standards required a raise of five cents per lunch. The added cost to a child’s lunches for the whole year totals $8.50. Lunch will now cost $2.85 for elementary students, $2.95 for middle school students, $3.05 for high school students and $4.50 for staff. Each age group gets different portions.

Board member Kayla Wansing said she had heard concerns from community members about both lunch prices and the food choices offered at lunch.

Superintendent Teresa Messersmith said other districts use contracted meal services to lower prices for students. Moving to a contracted service would result in Maries R-1 having to terminate cafeteria staff. The contracted workers would be part-time employees without benefits, unlike the full-time, district-employed staff in the cafeteria now.

“That’s completely up to the board,” Messersmith said. “We can look into other food services, but that’s how those companies afford those lower prices.”

“We’ve talked about all of this before, the food deal,” board member Mike Kleffner said. “That was every meeting for a year a few years ago. The school’s hands are tied. That’s the main thing. I do hear a lot of complaints.”

Messersmith said a district where she previously worked had contracted food services, and the variety was poor. Every Monday had the same options, every Tuesday had the same options and so on.

Wansing asked if the district could provide more options without changing services. She mentioned adding a salad bar.

“They’ve talked about the salad bar before,” Kleffner said. “They said it’s a very expensive deal because salad is really high right now.”

He added that the cafeteria had offered salad in the past, but so much was going bad before anyone ate it that the district cut it.

In a separate agenda item, the board discussed reinstating a charge limit for students with unpaid meal bills.

“There are some pros to that,” Messersmith said. “It is an incentive to complete the free and reduced lunch form. It helps keep families from running up large lunch bills. Parents are more motivated to pay the bill if their child is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and not a full meal. It helps prevent the district from being left with thousands of dollars of unpaid lunch accounts at the end of the year.”

At the conclusion of the 2022-23 school year, Maries R-1 had $3,482.80 in unpaid lunch accounts.

Board member Dave Garro asked about the donations the district received for unpaid lunch bills. Messersmith said without those donations the total would have been closer to $5,480.

“Some cons to (meal charge limits) are that students do have to eat a PBJ and they don’t get a full meal,” Messersmith said. “Students could be embarrassed. Students pay the price for something that really isn’t in their control.”

“If they don’t get a full lunch, they’re not learning,” board vice-president Kacie James said.

“That’s the whole deal,” Kleffner said. “Students come here and don’t have any control of if their parents are paying the bill. We are spending thousands of dollars on our athletes and all that. We can feed our kids.”

“We’re not putting a limit on it,” Garro said.

“This is the only meal that some of these kids are getting,” board vice-president Dave Long said.

“If that’s the only meal they’re getting, we need to talk to the parents and educate them to get the free lunch,” Garro said. “How can we be more aggressive with that?”

Messersmith said forms and information about free and reduced lunches would be available at the back-to-school fair.

Board member Matt Novak asked if there had been any movement in the state legislature to pay for school lunches. It has already acted to help to increase teacher salaries and fund transportation costs in Missouri schools. Six states have passed universal free school meals, and several others have had bills proposed to make school meals free.

“It just seems like with the money (the state) is paying on other things, this is a pittance,” Novak said.

“Our budget is $6.1 million,” Garro said. “We’re talking about $3,000. I think we move on and not worry about putting the (limit).”

The board voted unanimously to decline a cap on lunch accounts.