MADAWASKA – A proposal that would have given an alternative meal of jelly sandwiches, milk and fruit to students in the Madawaska School Department whose lunch accounts are delinquent has inflamed the community.

A local weekly newspaper has been inundated with letters to the editor, and the issue has been the talk of coffee shops, Main Street and the local paper mill.

The possibility of high school students being served the cold meal instead of the hot lunch students participating in the school lunch program usually receive arose at a school board meeting two weeks ago because 10 students owed considerable amounts of money to the program, said Interim Superintendent Paul Malinski.

Without releasing specific names, Malinski said the 10 Madawaska High School students involved were between nine and 45 weeks late with their payments totaling between $80 and $500. School lunch costs $2.25 per day or $9 per week.

Malinski said he had proposed an alternative cold lunch instead of no lunch be served to the indebted students. He said he told the board the parents involved had not answered telephone calls or letters about the issue.

A motion to not serve the cold lunch to students failed in a 2-2 tied vote of the school board. A fifth member of the board was not at the meeting. Had the full board been present, the issue could have ended there, one board member said.

Malinski said the discussion arose when he made a monthly financial report noting that 80 percent of the local money for school lunches had been spent, and another five months of school remained in the year.

“The lunch program was costing us more than we were bringing in,” he said. “The school lunch financial was one of the concerns.

“It was mentioned that parents be brought to small claims court,” Malinski said. “I wanted to see parents pay up instead of going to court.”

Since the meeting, Malinski said Wednesday, nine of the parents involved have paid the bills or made arrangements to do so. The 10th family has made an application to get free meals because of an emergency situation stressing their finances.

“We were not saying the students can’t have lunch; we were saying the account needed to be brought up to date,” Malinski said. “This was not a matter of a few weeks; it was months, and in some cases many months, [of being] behind [with payments].

“Our intent was to get people to pay their lunch bills,” the administrator said.

He said students will not be served the alternative meal.

Malinski explained that state law does not require school units to offer lunches to students above fifth grade.

There also has been talk about an alleged list of students being posted at the high school. That never happened, Malinski said. After the school board meeting, another mailing was done and the issue was resolved within days. Malinski said he had no intention of posting a list of students involved.

“Everything is straightened out,” he said.

Paul Cyr, a school board member at Madawaska, did not like the cold lunch proposal Malinski had made during the meeting. Malinski said Cyr still does not like it, even though everything is taken care of.

Cyr expressed his dissatisfaction with the situation Wednesday.

“Thank God they never put out the jelly sandwiches,” Cyr said Wednesday. “They did put out the list with the students’ names. I saw two of the lists at two serving lines at the high school.

“I objected strenuously to this entire thing from the start,” he said.

Cyr said if the missing school board member, Della Schlicher, had attended the meeting, or if School Board Chairman Yves Dube had agreed to call a special meeting when all members of the board could attend, the entire thing would not have happened.

“The situation is ended, but they [the administration] just didn’t care what would happen. I tried to get this idea derailed from the get-go,” he said. “Thank God it’s done and no student was made to eat jelly sandwiches.”

Cyr said he still needs answers. He plans to attend a meeting of the school lunch subcommittee today to try to get them.

“Nothing amazes me anymore with this School Department,” he said. “We take tax money for a school lunch program, and jelly sandwiches, milk and fruit just does not cut it.”