Flagler County mix up sends school lunch forms to graduates By DEBRA JOHNSON (debra.johnson@news-jrnl.com) Staff Writer PALM COAST - Flagler County graduates may be gone but they aren't forgotten - at least by the school district's Food Service Department.

A glitch in a new computer system for the department has landed some high school graduates back on its mailing list.

The department mailed out 7,000 notices the week of June 26 to tell parents of children in the school system about the district's food service and to sign up families eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

The problem is the mailing included a few families who don't need the information - notably, families of some Flagler Palm Coast High School students who have graduated.

"My understanding is that that incident is the exception and not the rule," said Lesley Anderson, administrative assistant to School Superintendent Dr. Robert Williams.

The mailing contained a form parents must fill out to qualify for the free or reduced-price lunches. The bulky envelope also contained an employment solicitation for part-time employees for cafeteria duty in the county's six schools.

Anderson said the Food Service Department's computer system is supposed to be designed to match full-time students with the mailing list.

There have been few problems in past years.

"The old system was kicking out the names of the graduates just fine," she said.

Anderson said the mailing mix-up occurred when the food service department updated a computer program. She said department manager Roy Pistone did not have an exact count of the former high school students who may been included in the mailing by mistake.

"He thinks it's probably only a handful," Anderson said.

She also said Pistone did not have a cost estimate for the mailing mistake. Using bulk mail rates, postage for each of the lunch information packets was 14 cents.

Anderson said the Food Service Department wants parents or former students who got the mailing in error to contact the department to have their names removed from the computer list.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/2000/Jul/7/AREA5.htm

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), July 07, 2000