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Wednesday, October 03, 2007 • BY BEV McCARRON • Star-Ledger Staff

Forget being able to check your kids' grades online. What parents really want to know is what their children do with their lunch money -- buy a meal or stuff themselves with snacks?

In a growing number of school districts, parents can go online and track eating habits. And parents who don't like what they see can limit the food their children are allowed to buy, down to the number of desserts.

As more schools switch to electronic accounts to eliminate cash payments in the lunch line, they also are giving parents the ability to log onto those accounts and monitor what their children put on their lunch trays.

"You can see a 30-day history of what they buy," said Heidi Monroe Kroft, spokeswoman for MealPayPlus, one of several automated payment systems New Jersey schools use. "And if you don't want them to have an extra bag of chips, it allows you to ban those food items."

New state regulations this year require cafeterias to cut back on fatty and sugary foods because of worries about childhood obesity. School officials say parental monitoring is one more way to make sure kids eat healthy lunches.

Bridgewater-Raritan is the latest district to set up electronic accounts for students, beginning this week. Other districts include South Orange-Maplewood, Holmdel, Montville and Hopewell Valley.

"We have it down to where a parent can choose to have only one snack per week per child, and that's it," said Pat Johnson, food director at South Orange-Maplewood.

The automated systems works like an E-ZPass for food. Parents set up an electronic account and deposit lunch money. When a child makes a purchase, the account is debited using a personal-identification number. At the end of the day, parents can look at what their children bought. What they see is similar to a grocery receipt -- a list of each item purchased, the cost and the date.

"They can look 24 hours a day and seven days a week. They can see what meal, what à la carte items -- a muffin, a banana, you name it -- they can find out," said Ray Barger, director of sales and marketing for Cybersoft Technologies, which offers the Parent Online automated payment system.

In Holmdel, in its second year of an automated payment system, if parents flag a food item -- either because of food allergies or because they don't want a kid to have a particular snack -- the cashier will get a warning. An alert also pops up if a student spends more than the parent has allotted per day.

If a red box comes up, the cashier asks the student to put the offending food back.

"Sometimes they get upset," said Laura Blasucci, director of food services at Holmdel. "But the parents love it because they can see what their kid is eating."

After surveying school districts nationwide, the Washington, D.C.-based School Nutrition Association estimated 62 percent of districts will use a prepaid lunch system this year, with another 14 percent either planning to implement one or considering it.

And of the systems in use, 70 percent allow parents to peek at what their kids buy, according to Erik Peterson, spokesman for the nutrition association.

"It's not being 'Big Brother,' with you keeping an eye on things," Peterson said. What it should do is prompt a parent-child discussion on healthy eating, he said.

Prepaid accounts have been around for nearly a decade and were touted as a solution to the common problem of "I left my lunch money at home." Also, the use of personal identification numbers instead of lunch tickets allows low-income students who get free lunches to blend in.

As concerns about child nutrition have blossomed, the software was expanded to allow parents access.

In South Orange-Maplewood, where electronic accounts have been used for eight years, with the monitoring capability added two years ago, parents have various options, including whether to let their kids buy just the meal or buy meals and snacks.

When her sixth-grade daughter was younger, parent Wahkeelah Ellis let the girl buy the meal only. After realizing her daughter is a fairly healthy eater on her own, she lifted the restriction.

"I didn't want her to eat too much junk. Then we came to an understanding," Ellis said.

At Bridgewater-Raritan High School yesterday, three disgruntled freshmen said their parents wouldn't spy on them, but they were unhappy parents now will be able to meddle in what has traditionally been sacred eating ground for teens.

"I understand they want to stop obesity, but come on. I think it's stupid," said Tony Parella, 14. "We should be able to eat whatever we want to eat."

E-accounts give parents a line on kids' lunches

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