Cold Cheese Lunch for Kids Whose Parents Can't Pay

[KoKo]

Cold Cheese Lunch for Kids Whose Parents Can't Pay

I just read an article about how New Mexico's largest school district is now serving students a cold cheese sandwich, fruit and milk carton if their parents don't pay their lunch bill.

They've resorted to this because unpaid lunch charges started piling up since the economy started going down. This doesn't, however, affect parents who qualify for free meals.

A couple things about this struck me:

1. These poor kids! Yes it's nice that they still do get a lunch; they're not going hungry. But, what kind of embarrassment is this putting them through at school? We all remember what it was like growing up with peer pressures, going through changes, popularity being so important and all of that business.

2. Did the parents think the school would just forget about their tab? Trust me, I understand we are in tough times and people have to pinch pennies, but these are not families that qualify for free meals, couldn't they send some sort of sack lunch so the student at least feels they're not being handed a poor man's meal and has to shoulder the burden mom and dad are dealing with?

3. A positive - I do think it's great that schools will not let students go hungry. It's especially important during tough times, as this situation illustrates, when parents/ guardians cannot afford to pay a school lunch bill because they maybe have more pressing bills - such as electricity and water - and have to make a choice.

4. Schools are dealing with the economy, too. They have budget cuts to make up and feeding the kids a full cafeteria meal for free just isn't an option. They rely on parents paying their bills so the school can pay its bills.

Eligibility for the National School Lunch Program: Household income determines whether the student recieves free meals, reduced price meals (the max. price to the student's family is 40 cents), or "paid meals, for which students pay most of the cost (the federal government pays a modest amount for administrative costs).

What do you think? Should the schools lower a heavier hammer on the parents who aren't paying their bills, rather than just saying, 'Well hey you're kid's gonna eat a cold cheese sandwich until you pay?' What about the kids; what affect does this - and the economic situation in general - have on them?

http://www.wibw.com/blogs/topdawg/40309327.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Haven't we already been beating this subject to death for at least a day?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yeah but we can beat it a little further

my conclusion, those who are for the hammer, will shortly change their tune when they're the ones facing the crisis on a personal basis

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. You have a point.

And I agree 100% with the principle that kids whose families can't afford school lunches should get subsidized lunches and should never be singled out by getting cheese sandwiches or whatever. My point is simply that there are already dozens of threads about the cheese sandwiches and it seems like all of them are just stirring up a lot of libertarian dickishness ("kids who don't have responsible parents who make lunches for them don't deserve free cheese sandwiches," etc.) that doesn't belong on DU.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Yep, some of the dikishness is coming out

in military terms that is called smoking them out

In their defense, yes there is some

We all hold views that are left, center and libertarian... it is just the amount

I am sure at times (gun control), all for it) I am that fascist prick some hate

:-)

But the level of libertarian thinking on this is a tad surprising

[NashVegas]

29. It's Not About Libertarian Thinking

It's about reality, and confronting & resolving it. Many people call this "growing up."

Until school districts adopt hot free lunches (which really aren't free, but that's a whole 'nuther issue) for all students, those who cannot afford to pay get free lunch, those who can afford to pay, pay.

Those who can pay but for whatever reason fail to confront and resolve that, get cheese sandwiches and fruit. It's not the end of the world.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. It is the how it is done

and by the way, those sandwiches are not cheaper to produce. SO the money saved is just bunk

Now in reality all kids should receive those lunches out of your and my taxes... just like everyone of us should have medical care. PERIOD

It tells me more about society than I want to know

And yes, it is libertarian thinking... the justifications that is. Your is rational, read some.

Damn parents, teach them a lesson

Too lazy to prepare a lunch

Too damn lazy to send the money

Those are the kinds of RIGHT WING libertarian reasons that we all have come to have an allergic reaction too.

(Where did I place my Epipen)

:-)

[applegrove]

2. Is this why there are all the cheese threads?

[KoKo]

8. Yes...it's about our kids...all of our kids...n/t

[sandnsea]

3. Some (most) districts don't allow children to eat anything

"Swift added that the cheese sandwiches — about 80 of the 46,000 meals the district serves daily — can be considered a "courtesy meal," rather than an alternate meal.

Some districts, she noted, don't allow children without money to eat anything.

Albuquerque Public Schools "has historically gone above and beyond as far as treating children with dignity and respect and trying to do what's best with for the child and I think this is just another example," Swift said."

[stray cat]

4. I brought cold cheese sandwiches for lunch for years as a kid - hot lunch was expensive

and usually bad anyway. Many of us brought our sandwich for lunch.

[KoKo]

13. Why can't we give all our kids a "Hot Lunch?" Soup and Sandwich and fruit that ALL GET ...ALL the

SAME... Healthy...get the salt out minimize the fat and give soy milk or regular milk for the calcium?

[tanngrisnir3]

19. What's a "Hot Lunch"? I know what a hot lunch is, but....

not what a "Hot Lunch" is. Is it a rhetorical device? And what is the tangiable benefit of a lunch being hot?

[sandnsea]

34. Then there would be "fascist forced feeding" threads

And some lame attack on corporations indoctrinating our kids into bad eating habits for the benefit of big pharma down the road.

[Buzz Clik]

7. Our school district enacted the same policy at the beginning of the school year (Aug 2008)

Due to state accounting regulations students can buy lunch only if they have money in their account to cover lunch costs each day. Cheese sandwiches will be available for anyone who can not buy a lunch.

[WolverineDG]

10. If the choice is a cheese sandwich or nothing, I vote for cheese sandwich

What a lot of DUers are missing is just how much it costs to provide lunches (free or not) at all, which schools are not constitutionally required to do in the first place. There are grants & federal money for that, but they have to account for every penny & they don't get credit for giving food away "for free." The schools are required to provide an education. The $300K projected budget shortfall in Albuquerque is not chump change. That's several teaching positions.

What a lot of DUers are conveniently overlooking is the steps this particular district takes to give the parents time to either contact the school or apply for reduced or free lunch programs. I think it's hypocritical to expect the school to bend over backwards to do something they are not legally required to do & not expect the parents to do a simple task such as return a phone call, visit the school, fill out a form, or :gasp: actually make a lunch so their kid doesn't get a cheese sandwich.

dg

[ogneopasno]

12. Nothing is better than a cheese sandwich.

Also, what you said.

[WolverineDG]

23. At least w/a cheese sandwich, the kids get fed nt

[Cleita]

11. Why don't they just throw a glop of porridge in a bowl for those kids.

It would be more nutritious than the cheese sandwich and still be sufficiently humiliating to the children as well if that's the intent.

[KoKo]

14. i hope you are being sarcastic?

:shrug:

[Cleita]

42. ...

:sarcasm:

[sandnsea]

16. They usually give nothing, absolutely nothing

I wish people would understand that little detail. Schools have a charge policy and if you don't take care of it, or call the school and ask for an extension, or something -- the kid usually gets NO LUNCH. This is a courtesy. The child in this school will always get something to eat.

People need to climb down out of their self-righteous lofty towers and call their own damn school district and see what they do for kids who don't pay for lunch.

[tanngrisnir3]

21. Ah, the sweet voice of reason......

[Nay]

27. Agreed, sandnsea. WTH is wrong with a cheese sandwich,fruit &

milk, all free?? And as a courtesy, too, so the kids don't go hungry, which the goddamned PARENTS don't seem to be too worried about! God god almighty, it's asinine to talk about "shaming" the kids with a cheese sandwich. The only person who should be ashamed is the damned parent. And to tell the truth, if those parents made the kids a lunch, it would probably be junk--not anywhere near as good as cheese, bread, fruit and milk.

[sandnsea]

32. If the parents made the lunch, they'd still be "shamed" I guess

Because you're right, it would be pretty near the same as what's in the sack lunch. In fact, I bet if they offered that sack lunch instead of the hot lunch, a lot of kids would prefer the sack lunch on any given day. There were days my kids asked me for a sack lunch because they didn't like what the school was serving that day, and it didn't matter whether the lunch was free or reduced price, if they didn't like it they got the "shameful" sack lunch.

[Gormy Cuss]

41. The problem with that idea is that they'd probably ask for more. n/t

[Cleita]

43. You got it.

I guess not that many people read Dickens and his literary indictments of poor houses.

[Lost in CT]

15. Actually it is for kids whose parent WON"T PAY

Kids of parents who CAN"T PAY already get a free hot nutritious meal.


Why is this concept so hard for people today....

[sandnsea]

18. Some parents get reduced lunches

And could have a period of time where they can't pay. Those kids are usually allowed to starve. At least this school provides a lunch of some sort.

[Donnachaidh]

39. There are a LOT of people getting laid off who don't have the immediate option

of filling out the paperwork for free lunches.

There are some schools that have cut off dates for the paperwork to be put in, and those families didn't know at that time that they would be laid off.

All this high horse bullshit because some are selfish enough to complain about families in trouble.

I guess the story will be different once these folks lose their jobs and find themselves scrambling to keep their world together.

As I've said before -- SHAME on the small-minded, cold-hearted *I carried my lunch 156 miles and only had a bone and a piece of cheese to gnaw on* *If that was good enough for me, it's good enough for them* COMPASSIONATE WHEN IT'S CONVENIENT posters here on DU.

[NashVegas]

17. Thanks For Re-Trying

First, I absolutely don't think a heavier hammer should be lowered. A cheese sandwich and fruit is nutritional enough - on occasion - to suit anyone for lunch.

It would be nice if the school would take an aggressive policy towards any harassers of the cheese eaters.

At the heart of this, for me, seems to be peoples' dread of confrontation of their circumstances. That's a really hard thing to do for a kid and they shouldn't have to, but ... it seems to me that the parents in this particular case, who don't have the $12 to feed their child for a week's worth of lunch but can run out to Michael's for poster-boards and other materials, really need a good shaking.

[KoKo]

20. Understand what you say...but still ...needs to get out there...

to bring it to attention... just saying.

[sandnsea]

22. Excuse me?

Michaels?? What the hell are you talking about.

[shari]

33. The signs

I assume it's about the materials for the protest signs since Michaels is craft supply store.

[sandnsea]

36. Oh. I didn't make any connection to protest signs

I was thinking buying kids' school supplies, as if these are parents toodling through Michaels buying the most expensive craft items, and then turning around and not sending money to school for lunch. Didn't make much sense.

Then again, they probably didn't buy the poster board at Michaels either, I think it's cheaper at Walmart which is where most low income people buy craft supplies.

But who cares about that anyway. I think it's a good thing for schools to provide a lunch to kids who didn't bring money, I wish they were marching to make sure ALL schools do it, even if it's just a cheese sandwich, fruit and milk.

[stillcool]

24. What happened to lunch boxes?

[KoKo]

25. Are you meaning parents who could prepare lunch boxes?

Where is the time...Poor kids have parents who work shifts...two, three, four jobs. It's hard to figure what they can put in there that isn't fast food ...to work out a balanced diet when you are dead tired and going out the door. How can you even have time to keep up with their homework..when you gotta get their clothes washed...if you can and try to give some "love?"

[stillcool]

26. I don't understand...

what's the big deal about making a sandwich? How old are these kids? Perhaps I'm missing something. Are school lunches a status symbol?

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. School lunches mark the kid as a failure or not

if all kids got the same, fine

That said, the working poor truly at times don't have the time... let alone the money, to put together a sandwich

This is a critical part of those kids diets.

If nothing else these stories are providing a small window into poverty in America

[KoKo]

30. Did you read the article? Otherwise...why would you ask? ????

[stillcool]

35. Why would I ask what?

How old are the kids? Is buying lunch at school a status symbol? Is there another article that differs from the OP?

[KoKo]

37. Your post #24 on the thread..n/t

[stillcool]

38. Lunch boxes?

did the article say something about making a sandwich at home?

[carlyhippy]

40. in our district the elementary aged kids have to be served lunch

but at the high school if the kid doesn't have a balance on their card, they either have to borrow money from a friend, or the parents need to come in and pay, or they don't get to eat. Notes are sent home with the kids when they have a small balance, and notes are also mailed to the parents, so they are warned.

I remember at the elementary here they always had a big platter of halved peanut butter sandwiches, I guess it would be the same as the cheese sandwichs in Albuquerque, but it was not only for the kids who didn't have lunch money, but also for the kids who didn't like what was being served that day, and for the kids who were still hungry after eating their meal. So I guess it wasn't that big of a standout, because most of the kids ended up eating those sandwiches anyway.

[Tatiana]

44. I can't help but think a cold cheese lunch won't do much for a high school kid.

But my high school doesn't even offer that "courtesy." No $$$, no food.

I hate it. If I see a kid in need of a meal, I'll buy it, but often they leave the building where no one can notice that they aren't eating.

I've submitted a grant proposal to offer an after-school program which will provide a hot meal to each student who attends. Honestly this was the only way I could get funding to feed our kids. Our school district has taken a firm position that they want all outstanding charges paid.

[NashVegas]

45. kickity