This year, Caverna students can have their cake and their parents can know it too.

A new online meal account prepayment system – MyNutriKids.com. – allows parents to deposit money in their children’s school meal accounts online and learn just what their children are buying.

“Parents and guardians can go online to a Web site and pull up their child’s information and they can prepay,” said Prudie Bishop, food services director. “They can put as much as they want into their child’s account.”

The school district recently mailed a letter outlining the system.

“Parents will have the ability to print out a copy of their child’s history report. This history report will show you all dates and times that your child has purchased a breakfast and/or lunch within the past 30 days,” Bishop stated in the letter.

Parents can create their children’s accounts from home by entering their child’s name, student ID number and their school’s zip code. Payments can be made through an existing PayPal account or with a major credit or debit card.

The letter also points out that a fee of $1.75 is assessed each time money is deposited to an account.

“Caverna School District will not profit from the use of this site. To offset the cost of this convenience fee, the district’s Food Service Department will provide one free meal for your son or daughter for every $25 you put on their account,” Bishop stated. “For example, a purchase of $25 will be charged a convenience fee of $1.75, but in return you will receive one free meal valued at $1.50.”

Parents can still make advance payments via check, she said.

Caverna isn’t the only school district that has decided to use an online meal account prepayment system. Warren County Schools are also trying it this year.

“We are using Meal Pay Plus,” said Gina Howard, food service director. “We thought it would be convenient for our parents to be able to go online and make payments from home and be able to manage their students’ accounts from home.”

Fayette County Schools implemented Meal Pay Plus last year.

“It worked great,” said Diane Seale, a supervisor with the district’s food service program.

“Parents can look on there at anytime to see if their children are getting low and they can put money in there,” she said.

By being able to see what their children are buying with their money, parents can also determine if their children are eating nutritious foods, Seale said.