August 11, 2021
Hello Falcons!
As mentioned in my July #2 newsletter, we are making some changes to our lunch program this year. Here are some bullet points from that newsletter:
- We are outsourcing our cafeteria services to St. Albert Nutrition Service (SANS) this year to provide more options to our students and to minimize operating costs for the school.
- A welcome letter and menu from SANS can be found here.
- SANS also uses the PaySchools platform and your student accounts are in the process of migration.
- The Federal Government is once again providing free lunch to all students for the entire school year.
Here are some updates:
- We are still in the process of converting your old St. Christopher PaySchools account to your new SANS PaySchools account. It is a bit complicated because are we are simultaneously converting Option C, our current Student Information System (SIS) to a new SIS called FACTS. Many of you are already using the FACTS Financial/Payment Module, but we will soon be using the full suite of FACTS products.
- Part of the process involves converting your Option C student identification number into a FACTS student identification number and linking it to your PaySchools account. We will notify you when that process has been completed.
- If you need access to your PaySchools account before that notification:
- you can go to the SANS website and follow their step-by-step instructions
- you will need to re-register in the system using “St. Albert” as the district
- you will need to indicate which student(s) to attach to your account using the “Add/View Student” tab.
- for now, you can continue to use your Option C student identification number(s) in order to re-register,
- If you are a new family and do not have a current Option C account, we will provide you a student identification number after the FACTS conversion has been completed.
- Many families still have funds in their accounts from last year. All of these funds will automatically transfer to your new account.
- If you have a large balance and want a full or partial refund, that will happen with SANS once we are fully operational with them.
- Similarly, if you received a federal lunch refund last year and you do not want to leave that balance in your account, your refund will be processed by SANS in the near future.
- Please remember that balances and pre-payments can still be used for extra drinks, snacks, etc.
Please do not worry if none of this make sense to you right now. We will do our best to help make sense of it. If it still doesn’t make sense to you by next Wednesday, please make sure your child packs a lunch. 🙂 In all seriousness, this is a confusing process for all of us, but these are great and important changes, and we will work through the transition together. Thank you, in advance, for your patience.
God Bless SANS & Go Falcons!
Mr. O’
