Food Service Alerts & Adding Funds to Your Child’s Account

By Press release submission

Sep 13, 2022

Now that meals are no longer free, many of the regular Food Service systems are back and running.

Through the MISTAR Parent Portal parents/guardians are able to add funds to their child’s food service account to pay for meals and apply for the Free/Reduced Meal Program. In addition, Berkley Schools started sending out negative balance and low balance notifications for food service accounts that are low.

Add Funds to Your Child’s Food Service Account

To add funds to your child’s Food Service Account, follow these steps.

Choose any of your children

Open the Cafeteria link from the left navigation bar

In the Cafeteria window, click the “Click Here to Access Online Food Service Payments” link

Enter any amount in the Payment Amount column for one or all of your children, then click the Continue button

Confirm the amount you added to your child’s account and then click Check Out

You will be redirected to PayPal to complete the payment

To fill out the Free/Reduced Meal Application, follow these steps.

Choose any of your children

In the School Links section, click ‘Click to Apply for Free or Reduced Meal Benefits’

In the top section, choose from the top application options and follow the instructions to complete the application

Food Service Alerts

The District’s communications system is set up to send courtesy reminders for families whose balances have dipped under $5 per child as well as those who have dipped into the negative. Currently, a phone call and email for children who have a negative balance is sent out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6 pm. Unfortunately, there is not a way to streamline the calls to one per family because each child has their own food service account.

Low balance alert emails are sent on Monday, Wednesday and Friday if a child’s balance is less than $5.

If a child’s balance dips into the negative, each child will still receive a full meal, however the account will be charged for each meal provided.

As a reminder for secondary students, each student's pin number can be used to purchase food.

If you have trouble paying your balance, please reach out to the Food Service Department at 248-837-8122. If payments are a hardship for your family, you may qualify for free or reduced lunch. The application is online, through the MISTAR Parent Portal and available through the Food Service Department.