Parents

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Meal Payments | SchoolCafe

SchoolCafé is an online platform and mobile app that allows parents and students to easily manage school meals. Through SchoolCafé, families can view daily cafeteria menus (including nutritional and allergen information), add funds to meal accounts, set up balance alerts, and monitor purchases. The platform also provides a convenient way to apply for free or reduced-price meals—all in one place.

*Parents can set spending limits for their student(s) accounts. Please visit www.schoolcafe.com to create your new accounts.

The SchoolCafé secure payment portal at www.schoolcafe.com allows parents to pay online using credit or debit cards. Other SchoolCafé benefits include:

  • Easy to enroll
  • Downloadable app
  • View your child’s cafeteria balance
  • Apply for Free and Reduced Meal Assistance
  • See what your child ate & spent
  • 24/7 access to your account
  • Set up automatic payments
  • Get low balance email reminders
  • Apply online for Free/Reduced Lunch & Textbook Assistance 

Click here to download a pdf of step-by-step instructions to set up your account today. 

SchoolCafé will charge a 5% service fee for each transaction (no minimum required). Parents may find it most beneficial to add $39 at a time to their child’s account which would keep the SchoolCafé service fee at $1.95.

To create a SchoolCafé account, you will need a valid email address and your child’s school ID. Then go to www.schoolcafe.com and follow the steps. 

  • Once you’ve created your account, all the school children in your family, no matter which P-H-M school they attend, can be added to your one account. 
  • Remember to bookmark www.schoolcafe.com in your browser—or you can get there quickly through all P-H-M websites. Just look under QUICK NAVIGATION in the lower left corner of the page and click on PAY MEALS ONLINE.

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CASH OR CHECK

​If you prefer to pay the school via cash or check, please write your child’s name and “lunch money” on the envelope. Don’t forget to specify either “Meal account” or “Ala-carte account.”  The meal account only allows full meal purchases, while ala-carte allows for the purchase of snacks as well as meals.

Note that when you provide a check as payment for a food purchase in the food service department, you authorize the P-H-M Food Service Department to process the payment as a check transaction. Federal Automated Recovery Systems (FARS) processes our electronic collection of checks returned for insufficient funds (NSF).  ​

PAYMENT TERMS

Please make sure that your child has lunch money available each day. Children without lunch money may be required to call home, or be served a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, milk and fruit, after the first charged meal. You will still be charged for peanut butter and jelly meals. Ala-carte and snack items may not be charged.

If your child has a negative balance, they will not be allowed to purchase snacks. Food Services is not allowed to carry negative balances on children’s accounts in the National School Lunch Program so if a meal is charged for your student, you must pay the amount due the following day.