Payment & Pricing

Meal Prices

Online Access

You can access your student balance through your student's Infinite Campus Portal. There is a tab for meals that should be updated daily.

Please contact your individual school for more information. You can also access your student balance through PayPams.com at no cost.

Navigation

Point of Sale System

All students are assigned a 4-5 digit student ID. The student ID is confidential.

At the cashier, they enter their student ID on a keypad, and pay either with money from their prepay account, cash, or both. Students may have their names checked from a classroom roster instead of entering their student ID if needed.

Students are offered three levels of items. They must take an entree and at least one other item to qualify for the lunch price. Otherwise, the meal is charged at higher a la carte prices and cannot be claimed as a free or reduced meal.

Pre-Pay Accounts

Food Service is excited to announce that we now have an online payment system available at PayPams.com. PayPAMS is a safe and convenient way to make online payments to your students lunch account.

Convenient

On the web or any iOS Android mobile device

Cool Tools

Set up low balance alerts and automatic payments, view account balances and history, including meals and snacks purchased.

Safe & Secure

Your information is encrypted for added security on systems with the highest level of compliance measured by the Payment Card Industry security standard.

Flexible Payment Options

Visa, Mastercard,Discover, ACH, and Paypal

New PayPams Users - How to Sign up

How to sign up:

Go to PayPAMS.com and click on the 11 Sign Up Now!" button on the home page
Select your state, then select your school district
Create a username and password and enter your contact information 4. Add children to your account 5. Make payments or set up automatic payments based on low balance (There is a $1.95 charge student)

Helpful Hint:

Username: Create a unique username. If the system indicates that the username is taken, select a different user name
Duplicate Accounts: If the system indicates that an account already exists with the same phone number or email address, contact customer support from the 'Contact Us' page.
Meal Account Balance and Cafeteria Purchases: It takes 1-2 school days before balances and cafeteria purchases information for new registrants can be displayed. However,you can make payments immediately upon registration. If you cannot view balances two days after you added the student to the account, contact customer support from the 'Contact Us' page

Low Balance Email Notifications

To make sure emails from PayPAMS are not blocked, add customerservice·@paypams.com to your address book and safe list

Need Assistance? Please visit PayPAMS.com and click 'Help' to navigate to PayPAMS Help Center

Pre-Pay Nutrition Account

All students and staff have a Pre-Pay Nutrition Account. Parents are expected to pay each Monday by 9 AM for the meals your child will eat during the week.

Deposits to the account should be made by check. Please Include the following in the memo area

Student name,
Student ID
Teacher's name

Checks should be made payable to: FOOD SERVICES. All cash deposits must be in envelopes with the same information. Change will not be given to students. Middle school and high school students may prepay in cash at the register during lunch.

All returned checks are charged a fee of $15.00 from the students account. As students take a meal, their name or STUDENT ID will be recorded and their account charged. Each purchase must be tracked by federal regulations.

No child ever needs to reveal whether they are free/reduced/paid. This is confidential information.

Charge Procedure

Students and parents can request a balance report from the school kitchen at any time. You can also request a statement showing all account activity if you have questions about the account. Positive meal balance remaining at the end of the school year will roll over to the next year. Even if the student changes school buildings, the money balance will go with them.

Contact your school's food service team leader for more information.

Charge Procedure

Charge Procedure

The goal of the Portland Public Schools is to provide students with healthy meals each day. However, unpaid charges place a large financial burden on the Food Service Department. While the USDA Child Nutrition Program does not require that a student who pays regular priced meals, be served a meal without payment, the Portland Public Schools provides this service as a courtesy those students in the event that they forget or lose their lunch money.

In USDA Memo Code SP46-2016, the federal government requires Food Service Authorities to create a procedure to provide oversight and accountability for the collection of outstanding meal balances.

The Portland Schools Food Service Department will follow the procedures below to set standards within the department consistent with the realization that students may sometimes forget their meal monies. We operate within a structure that teaches responsibility and strive to operate a service which is financially responsible. It is the goal of the department that all student balances remain in the positive. As a courtesy, a low balance notice will be sent to households at a positive $9.00.

With no regards to balance amount, students will be served menued meals, and those meals will be charged to their accounts.

If students’ balances fall into the negative, school messenger and email notification will commence immediately. School messenger will send notification on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and at the elementary level, paper notification will be sent home once a week via backpack.

If there is no response from families, after an elementary student has charged five (5) meals or a secondary student has charged three (3) meals, school administration will commence collection procedures.

The collection procedures will be initiated with the Food Service Director, followed by the Executive Director of Budget and Finance, and then to the Superintendent.

Refunds

Withdrawn Students may submit a written request for a refund of any monies remaining in their account. An e-mail request is acceptable. Requests must be made with 60 days of the student transfer, and must be made within the current school year.
There will be no refunds for graduating students at the end of the year. Balances may be transferred to another student account with written request, prior to the end of the fiscal year.

Balances owed at the end of the year

Account Balances may be checked at any time by logging into Paypams.com, by checking into Infinite Campus, or checking with the cafeteria staff at your student’s school.
All negative balances must be settled at the end of the school year. By June 1 st , households will be notified if they have a negative balance. Any balance below zero will be expected to be paid in full.
The USDA considers bad debt, debt that can no longer be collected, a non-allowable expense. Food Services is not allowed to carry that forward, therefore any bad debt at the time of graduation will be billed to the general fund, and removed from the food service account.

Positive Balances may be carried forward on your student’s account. Any unclaimed funds become property of the Portland Public Schools Food Service Department