Parents of students in the Watauga County Schools now have an online option to pay for their children's school meals and to see how their children are using lunch money.

The new service is being offered through a privately operated, advertisement-free Web site at http://www.lunchprepay.com.

A basic and a premium option are available for the service. The basic option allows online payment on student accounts, while the premium option allows online payment, as well as  access to current account balances, a 45-day history of what students have bought in their account, and automated e-mail notice when a child's account balance is running low.

For the basic option, the cost of the service is a 5 percent addition to the payment.  Under the premium option, users pay the additional 5 percent and a $10  annual fee per family.  Under either option, parents can make a single payment to cover multiple children, including children at different schools within the Watauga County Schools system. 

The service is completely optional. Parents who prefer to make payments on student accounts at school can continue to do so.

An introduction to the service, including a link to the Lunch PrePay Web site, has been added to the parent link page of the Watauga County Schools Web site (http://www.watauga.k12.nc.us). 

Parents will need their child's cafeteria account number, which is the same as the NC Wise number on student report cards, and a valid e-mail address to activate an account. 

To begin setting up an account, parents should go to the Lunch Prepay homepage at http://www.lunchprepay.com. and click on the "new user" link in the column on the left-hand side of the page.

Introductory information and a list of frequently asked questions about this service are posted on the Child Nutrition page of the Watauga County Schools Web site (http://www.watauga.k12.nc.us).

Additional questions can be referred to child nutrition director Nicole Mayernik at (828) 264-7190 or (mayernikn@watauga.k12.nc.us)

This online service is operated by Meals Plus using software developed by Education Management Systems (EDS) Inc., an administrative software company based in Wilmington.
 
EDS develops, distributes and supports school accounting and food service management software in schools throughout the United States.