The Pasco County school district has found a way to avoid costly transaction fees associated with a popular national app for school lunches by creating its own local version.
It's called Pasco One, and it's being rolled out just in time for the start of school this month.
Pasco used to provide free meals for all children, but that changed last year with federal cuts to various food programs. Now, some Pasco schools still give all students free meals, while others offer paid, free and reduced options depending on income.
And when the district began using the national app MySchoolBucks last year to fill those lunch accounts, parents quickly saw its $3.50 per student per deposit fee was adding up fast.
"I noticed how much it was not just costing me, but I also noticed that other parents were starting to talk about it and ask about it,” said Pasco school board member Jessica Jecusco-Wright.
Theoretically, parents could send their child to school with cash for lunch — and risk it getting lost — or minimize the fees by adding, say, $100 at a time to their children’s account, and be charged $3.50 for the transaction.
But that’s not a solution for parents who live paycheck to paycheck and can only add money to MySchoolBucks on a weekly basis.
“And if you have multiple children within the school system, that could easily be anywhere from $20 a month to maybe $100 a month,” Jecusco-Wright said.
For example, a family with three kids in school that deposits money in their online lunch accounts weekly would pay $3.50 per deposit, per kid. Those transaction fees add up to $42 a month, or enough to buy about 13 school lunches in Pasco County.
In January, Jecusco-Wright floated the idea of replacing MySchoolBucks with a district-run app that would not charge families.
“We just started talking about some of these different things that are potential barriers for parents and families, and we talked about, is this something we could realistically do? And thankfully, we have a lot of talented staff and leadership. They're not afraid to try something new,” she said.
Over the next several months, the Pasco School District developed the new and improved app, called Pasco One, formerly known as MyStudent.
It's free to use, and puts most — if not all — school forms in one place. The idea is to make it easier for parents to sign up and pay for all different kinds of activities at school.
“The simple reality of it is, even though I'm starting to show my age and I'm more used to a desktop, most people are using their mobile phones as their primary source of information and interaction of filling out forms,” said superintendent John Legg at a June school board meeting.
“We are going to be one of the few districts in Florida that have its own exclusive app like this,” he said.
“I'm sure, like everything else, there's going to be hiccups along the way,” added Legg. “But the team has worked very hard to roll this out. We expect to just keep improving it to make it more efficient for our families to interact with.”
Jecusco-Wright said in the week since the app was unveiled, “overall the feedback has been very positive, and families are feeling really excited because now they don't have to go to maybe three, four different platforms to make sure that their kids are set up for the new school year.”
Other school districts could follow Pasco’s lead and design their own apps.
“It's so important to approach new ideas and change with consensus,” Jecusco-Wright said. “Knowing your audience and knowing who needs to be on board to generate that consensus is huge to making lasting and impactful change."
