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Austintown schools changes online payment program
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Austintown schools have switched to a new online payment program for school fees.
Starting Dec. 31, parents can access the new system, K12PaymentCenter.com. The Austintown school district had used PaySchools, but that company was bought out and will no longer have technical support, Superintendent Vincent Colaluca explained.
“The major change is the $1.95 transaction fee. For the last seven years, the [Austintown] Board of Education has been eating the cost of the convenience fee, and the main reason we did that was when we started this, we were having so many insufficient funds of checks coming in,” Colaluca said. “Nonsufficient funds aren’t happening anymore and our budget’s getting tighter. We actually did some research; no one in the area pays the convenience fee on any online payment plan of school systems, so we’ll have to pass that onto parents.”
Tascin Brooks, the district’s food-service director, said parents can make one payment into separate accounts and only pay one transaction fee. She also echoed Colaluca’s sentiment about not many districts eating the convenience fee.
The online payment system can be used for school fees, such as school meals. Brooks said the new program is compatible with Meals Plus, the system for the district’s meals.
Both Brooks and Colaluca said it is a choice to use the online payment center and Brooks said parents can still use checks or cash for fees.
“This service is being offered as a convenience to our Falcon families. Those who choose to use it will see it is much easier than our previous system,” Brooks said in an email.
She also said that checks are preferable over cash for payment because checks are easier to track.
“The online service syncs every two hours, except during the hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Deposits will no longer take 24 hours,” Brooks said.
She also highlighted that parents can set a notification level, such as getting a text message or email if their child’s account hits a certain number.
For example, if a parent sets their notification level at $10, they will receive notice and can put more money into the account of the child before it hits zero.
The system is also available to district employees for their lunches and follows the same rules.
“All families are so busy these days, and that is one of the last things even I remember to do is put money on my student’s lunch account,” Brooks said.
With the previous system, parents could see what their child or children were getting for food, “but the new system is way more in-depth. They can see if they’re getting a la carte, they can see if they are doing other types of purchases,” Colaluca said.
The Austintown Board of Education officially signed off on the switch at its December board meeting.