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SL-Tech and SchoolMessenger Team Up to End Negative
Meal Balances
Santa Monica, CA and Santa Cruz, CA, November 10,
2006 – School-Link Technologies (SL-Tech) announced
today that it has agreed to partner with
SchoolMessenger, the leading provider of K-12
automated parent notification systems, to provide an
integrated foodservice management solution for K-12
school districts. SchoolMessenger’s notification
systems directly interface with SL-Tech’s Point of
Sale platforms, including WebSMARTT, WinSNAP, and
CAFS, to address the financial pressures overdue
meal balances have on school districts. In some
school districts, these negative balances can reach
as high as tens of thousands of dollars.
Previously, administrators have reminded parents of
low and overdue meal balances by calling parents or
sending written notices home with students. These
tedious tasks required valuable staff time and often
led to awkward, uncomfortable conversations with
parents about financial obligations.
SchoolMessenger’s automatic telephone and e-mail
notices eliminate many of these challenges for
foodservice administrators.
“SchoolMessenger provides a personalized, polite,
and non-confrontational way of reminding parents
that their child’s lunch balance is overdue,” states
Susan Gadoua, SchoolMessenger’s Vice President of
Business Development.
School districts using both SchoolMessenger’s
notification system and SL-Tech’s Point of Sale
solutions have seen significantly reduced negative
meal balances and increased prepayment revenues.
Additionally, the staff time saved through the use
of SchoolMessenger’s automated message delivery
system translates directly into greater efficiency
and lower operating costs.
Furthermore, SchoolMessenger may be used to easily
send messages regarding payment deadlines, free and
reduced meal applications, staff reminders and
scheduling, and information about new food items and
nutritional information.
“SL-Tech is always looking for new innovations to
help our customers improve their bottom line while
serving healthy meals. SchoolMessenger works with
SL-Tech’s family of foodservice management solutions
to create an integrated system for keeping students
fed and money in their accounts. This equates to
more nutritious lunches served, more students fed,
and more money for the districts to allocate to
other priorities,” asserts Stephen Scardina, SL-Tech
Director of Sales & Marketing.
The partnership with SchoolMessenger allows SL-Tech
to provide another valuable solution to its
customers to further enable the operation of
“cashless” cafeterias. Along with SL-Tech’s
myLunchMoney.com online prepayment service and their
myPAL prepayment kiosks, SchoolMessenger enhances
the ability for schools to reach out to parents and
improve the convenience of paying for their child’s
school meals.
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Incorporated in 1985 as SNAP Systems, SL-Tech is the
school foodservice industry’s recognized leader.
Their fully integrated foodservice management
solutions, which include Point of Sale, Free and
Reduced Application Processing, Ordering, Inventory,
Menu Planning, and Production software, are
installed in nearly 1,000 K-12 school districts
across the US, including more than 80 of the largest
districts in the country. Offices are located in
Santa Monica, CA, Mesa, AZ, and Biloxi, MS. SL-Tech
partners with school districts to effectively
integrate technology and operating expertise to
improve the quality of student life, nutrition
accountability, and fiscal results.
SchoolMessenger, a division of Reliance
Communications Inc., is the leading provider of
parent-notification solutions for education. Its
family of products, which include desktop, server,
and hosted solutions, are in use in more than 5,000
school districts, connecting educators with millions
of parents everyday. Founded in 1999, the
privately-funded company is headquartered in Santa
Cruz, California.
For more information about SL-Tech and their
products, please visit www.sl-tech.net or contact
Customer Service at (800) 423-2113 x8102.
For information about SchoolMessenger and their
products, please visit
www.schoolmessenger.com/foodservice/
or contact Customer Service at (888) 527-5225.
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