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BRANTLEY COUNTY, Ga. -- The school board in Brantley County, Ga., has hired a collection agency to recoup the cost of unpaid school lunches, saying it's thousands of dollars in the red.
School officials said the the board is roughly $25,000 in debt as a result of unpaid $1.25 lunches.
Some parents said they're on the fence about the collection agency.
"If they can't afford it, they can't afford it," grandparent Robin Batten said. "I wouldn't think so to force them."
"I think parents should be responsible," parent Leah Wainwright said. "I pay for my kid's lunch. Why shouldn't everybody else?"
Brantley County school nutrition director Cindy Ham said this is a last resort, but a necessary one.
"OMD Circular 887 -- it's a federal guideline -- requires that there's no indebtedness to the school nutrition program," Ham said.
Glynn County, a much larger neighboring district, had upwards of $40,000 in unpaid student lunches. Instead of reaching out to a collection agency, it took a more creative approach.
The Glynn County School Board said in a statement: "While we considered implementing a collection agency, at the beginning of the 2010 calendar year, we chose to provide those students with outstanding lunch debt a cheese sandwich and carton of milk for lunch. In doing so, we were able to feed children in need and encourage parents to pay back their debt."
The school board said it reduced its debt by nearly half.
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