School district drops threat of foster care placement
Parents were warned of the possibility if they didn’t pay their child’s lunch bills
The Wyoming Valley West School District will stop mailing letters warning parents that their children could end up in foster care if they don't pay money owed for school lunches, Director of Federal Programs Joseph Muth said Thursday.
Around 1,000 students owed a total of $22,467, and the district recently mailed a batch of roughly 40 letters with the foster-care warning, Muth said.
The new approach came after Luzerne County officials insisted the district “cease and desist from making these representations” about potential foster-care placement.
The Luzerne County Children and Youth foster care system is used “when a child has been abused” or “a family has been struck by tragedy,” not “to scare families into paying school lunch bills,” County Manager David Pedri and Children and Youth Director Joanne Van Saun wrote Thursday in a letter to district Superintendent Irvin DeRemer.
Future collection letters will not mention anything about foster care, and the district will send letters apologizing to parents who received letters with the foster-care warning, school board Vice President David Usavage said.
Muth, who signed the letter with the foster-care warning, said the school board will send
new letters. Muth also said he made a mistake by not having DeRemer review the letter with the foster-care warning.
District Solicitor Charles Coslett on Wednesday defended the letter with the foster-care warning. Federal regulations forced the district to provide lunches to students even when they had a tab for unpaid meals, Coslett said.
“Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” Muth wrote in the controversial letter. “This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition ... the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care. ... please remit payment as soon as possible to avoid being reported to the proper authorities.”
The warning in the letter “was harsh” and may have inflicted unnecessary stress on parents, Usavage said, noting the average unpaid bill was $22 a student.
“When I first read the letter, the top of my head almost came off,” Usavage said.
Pedri said the foster-care warning was “an empty threat.” The Luzerne County Children and Youth agency offered to provide training to Wyoming Valley West staff “so they may have a better understanding of the agency’s role and responsibility,” Pedri and Van Saun wrote to DeRemer.
“Luzerne County Children and Youth should never be viewed as a punitive agency or weaponized to terrorize children and families,” the county officials added. “The agency provides support and makes available a number of resources to assist families and
“When I first read the letter, the top of my head almost came off.” — David Usavage, Wyoming Valley West School District vice president
maintain children in their home. Luzerne County Children and Youth recognizes that removing a child from family causes significant trauma and should only be utilized when all attempts to preserve the family are unsuccessful.”
Coslett said Wednesday he was prepared to take legal action against parents who refused to pay lunch bills and would cross-examine them on whether they spent money on unnecessary items, such as lottery tickets or alcoholic beverages.
The district began sending letters to collect unpaid lunch bills because all Wyoming Valley West students will now get free lunches for at least the next five years, Muth said. The reason all students will get free meals is at least 60% of district students now meet the income threshold to qualify for free meals, Muth said.
The district discovered some students didn’t qualify for free meals because their parents erroneously included government assistance as income, Muth said. The federal government funds the freemeal program.
Four of seven district schools provided free meals for all students in 2018-19, Muth said. The students with the unpaid lunch bills came from the other three schools — the high school, Dana Street Elementary School and Chester Street Elementary School.