My district has been known to be one of the few programs in the county to make a profit on the lunch program under the direction of our former "Soup Nazi." She was wonderful in more ways than one, but the kids who didn't pay got celery and peanut butter. That's hardly a high class cheese sandwich. It definitely curbed people from sending their children to school unprepared or without money. We have nary a need to consider using a collections department like Visalia does. They even are considering using small-claims court to get back some of the losses. According to this USA Today article, Visalia schools have gone from a $5,000 shortfall from unpaid lunches to $24,000. That's a lot of dough. They'd probably be able to make a lot of bread with it don't you think?
Would you suppose that without that school lunch program, these kids would seriously never have any food to eat? Why is Visalia so worried about everyone fitting in at all costs? Obviously, for some kids starvation isn't far from the truth unfortunately. However, given the fact that it would be reason to have your child taken away from you for child abuse, I highly doubt people are starving their kids to the extent they cannot afford one meal a day. Meals at regular price are a mere $1.50 for a full hot-lunch program. Multiply that by the 180 days of school, and you're looking at $270 for 9 months of lunches. If you take the time to make lunches at home, even less money. I'm certain that the reason why schools lose so much on their lunch programs is because a hungry child pulls on the heartstrings of every person. How are you going to deny a child food? Or worse, how are you going to make it be known they didn't have money to pay for lunches? Isn't that as bad as kids not earning their way onto sports teams legitimately?
We had a similar issue about five years ago at my school. One parent decided she did not want to fill out the free and reduced lunch form, but she did not want to pay for lunch either. The student charged his lunch’s everyday and school lunches are $2 at my school. The students racked up almost $400 dollars in charges because he added extras to his tray. The county withheld his report card and would not let him move on to the next grade without payment. Needless to say they ended up in court and the county lost more than $400. Now our new policy is a child may charge three times and then they are given a PB&J and milk. I thought this was unfair as well but then I talked to the cafeteria manager. Every year she looks up all the kids that can receive free and reduced lunch and sends a form home. She comes to every open house and parent day to try to get parents to fill the forms out. Many of them do but others refuse because of pride or because they do not know how to. Without the form students cannot receive free lunch. I understand where the county created this policy, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling sorry for the student.
ReplyDeleteThere's alot in your blog to consider. It is unfair for students who don't qualify to receive free lunch, my district charges the same $1.50. I question if you can make the same nutritional lunch at home for much less. I don't think small claims court is the answer though- throwing good money after bad.
ReplyDeleteI think that school lunch should be free for all that want it. The only problem is who will pick up the tab?
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