WP: ‘It’s embarrassing to the kids’: Students who owe lunch money will get only a cold jelly sandwich, district says

[dunfer]

1 minute ago, skinsmarydu said:

I think that meant that their income was $33 more than could be considered for the free lunch credit.  (I do love your "go get 'em", tho)

ah that makes more sense.

 

So are school lunches now all outside contracts or are they still the same lunches i had for a dollar? We should be able to pay for those dollar ones

[skinsmarydu]

Just now, dunfer said:

ah that makes more sense.

 

So are school lunches now all outside contracts or are they still the same lunches i had for a dollar? We should be able to pay for those dollar ones

My high school cafeteria was the highest rated in VA when I was there.(early 80s).  I wanted to take my lunch and my mom would say, "I can't give you good hot food for 75 cents.  School can."  (We ate well at home in an area where most folks had to either kill it or grow it...we were fortunate.)

I've since heard of salad/potato bars and such from younger co-workers...we had limited time...it would take me that long to put my stuff together.  I have no idea what's going on now, I never had kids.

[dunfer]

29 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

My high school cafeteria was the highest rated in VA when I was there.(early 80s).  I wanted to take my lunch and my mom would say, "I can't give you good hot food for 75 cents.  School can."  (We ate well at home in an area where most folks had to either kill it or grow it...we were fortunate.)

I've since heard of salad/potato bars and such from younger co-workers...we had limited time...it would take me that long to put my stuff together.  I have no idea what's going on now, I never had kids.

i imagine mcdonalds, chickfila and pizza hut. Ive seen documentaries with these guys in schools like a mall food court, but no idea if thats just Beverly hill ****

[TheGreatBuzz]

Navy galleys on shore commands at least have pretty good food.  Copy them.

[skinsmarydu]

19 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

Navy galleys on shore commands at least have pretty good food.  Copy them.

Our quick line was decent on my ship.  Get a dog and a side of fries, and a nap.

[China]

End of nationwide federal free lunch program has some states scrambling

 

During the height of the pandemic, the federal government made lunch free to all 50.6 million public school students nationwide. That program expired Sept. 30, leaving many families, school districts, and legislators scrambling to deal with the new financial burden.

 

California and Maine saw what was coming and passed bills in 2021 ensuring all students had free school meals. Now Colorado and 8 other states are working to do the same. An additional two states have extended the program through the end of this school year, but don't have any pending legislation for beyond that.

 

"It's difficult to give a precise number [on how many families will be affected]," said Krista Ruffini, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who specializes in government policies that affect labor market, education, and health outcomes. "But before the pandemic, about 25% of students were attending a school that offered schoolwide free meals through the Community Eligibility Provision or related programs."

 

That means many families across the nation will likely need to start paying for school meals again.

 

In Colorado, a coalition of parents, teachers and anti-hunger advocates worked with legislators to get the Healthy School Meals for All proposal on the Nov. 8 ballot, so voters can decide whether to bring universal free school lunch back.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I've read the past couple pages and it seems we are trying to overreach on the problems we are trying to solve here. At some point, all you can really do is make the food available to those who cannot afford it. I send my kids to school with either money or (occasionally) food. They are 13 and 15 so I really can't guarantee that they buy the right things or eat what they buy. If I can't, how can the schools or the government? 

[tshile]

On 8/26/2022 at 4:14 PM, PeterMP said:

 

From what I know (from what my kids say), this is not one of those things that is that simple.  It sounds simple on paper, but it isn't.

 

1.  With free universal lunch at my kids' schools the desire to buy lunch went down.  My kids went from kids that occasionally bought lunch to kids that never bought lunch.  They describe the free lunches as disgusting, and it isn't like I'm packing candy bars or jello cups in my kids' lunches.  A treat is some gold fish crackers when we pack a lunch.  But for the last year plus every day, they'd rather have what I'm packing vs. what the school was giving.  The school used to sometimes bring in pizza or cold cuts from local restaurants but with the rules from the universal lunch that went away.  My kids would always "buy" those days and some other random times they'd decide to buy.

 

Then as part of that, I suspect you've also increased the stigma of actually getting and eating a lunch for people that are poor and need the lunch.  The way my kids at least talk, anybody that is actually getting a lunch to it is going to stand out.  I also suspect those kids are eating less of what they are getting.

 

2.  From what I'm told, I suspect that food waste has gone up.  With lunches being free, the school isn't tracking who gets how many lunches.  So if there is one good thing on the lunch, some kids (I'm told the "boys") will go get multiple lunches, eat what they want, and throw the rest away.  You have to take a whole lunch.  My oldest daughter describes the pudding they get as fake and not good, but apparently the "boys" like it, will get several lunches (go through the line several times), eat the pudding and throw the rest away.

 

So, yes we everybody that needs a lunch should be able to get a lunch.  But we need to balance that against serving food that kids actually want to eat and not wasting food.  And I'm not at all sure that universal free lunch is a good way to do that.  And one way to reduce the stigma of eating the school lunch and being able to pay for meals that kids want to eat, and minimizing food waste is to charge people that can afford to buy lunch for lunch.

Missed this post. New job took all my time when it was made. 
 

but this is an example of why sometimes good intentions don’t turn out so great. And that happens a lot with some left-wing policies (which for some reason feeding kids is a left-wing ideal)

 

and it’s why I often say there’s a lot of room for conservatives to do a better job and compete for votes by providing a better solution (instead of pretending the problem doesn’t exist or isn’t worth doing anything about)

 

and i agree with your conclusion. Access to quality food for children is a noble and worthy cause, and it’s an investment that pays dividends that are hard to fathom. 
 

but no the program that rolled out during Covid was hardly a great way to tackle that problem. 

[The Evil Genius]

1 hour ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

I've read the past couple pages and it seems we are trying to overreach on the problems we are trying to solve here. At some point, all you can really do is make the food available to those who cannot afford it. I send my kids to school with either money or (occasionally) food. They are 13 and 15 so I really can't guarantee that they buy the right things or eat what they buy. If I can't, how can the schools or the government? 

 

Fwiw I suspect conservative politicians largely don't care about public schools and the kids within. They care about how they can line their pockets by redirecting those fixed costs into private and religious schools. There is no conservative solution because it's not an issue that the party will ever care about. Diminishing public school funding is the conservative endgame. 

 

As for free school breakfasts/lunches, I personally think it's a win even if a small population takes advantage of it. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by The Evil Genius

[gbear]

I was talking with a neighbor about school lunches the other day, and he brought up an interesting point.  When he was growing up, kids who brought lunches to school were thought of as rich.  I thought that was odd, but he pointed out in a poor school district, like where he grew up, almost everybody was poor enough to qualify for the free lunches.  If you brought your lunch, it meant you were wealthy to qualify for the free lunches.

 

Now, my kids liked some of the free lunches. While they prefer our food for the most part, they don't like making their lunches at night.  Tough!  I find their laziness despicable and ungrateful.  We are a lucky, spoiled crew.      

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Coloradans approve free meals for K-12 students

 

Colorado voters have approved Proposition FF, which will change the way free lunches work in K-12 schools, according to the Associated Press.

 

Prop FF will provide free meals to all K-12 students within participating districts and increase pay for school food preparation workers. It will also subsidize Colorado-grown and Colorado-produced food.

 

Funding for these changes will come from an increased income tax on Coloradans making $300,000 or more.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How many chicken wings do you get for $1.5M?

 

Suburban school worker charged with stealing $1.5M worth of chicken wings from district

 

The food service director for an impoverished south suburban school district is accused of stealing $1.5M worth of food – mainly chicken wings – according to court documents reviewed by WGN Investigates.

 

Vera Liddell, 66, worked for Harvey School District 152 for more than a decade, according to a LinkedIn account associated with her name.   

 

“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school,” reads a proffer presented at Liddell’s bond hearing.

“Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up.”

 

Court records accuse Liddell of ordering more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings from the school district’s food provider and then picking-up the order in a district cargo van. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 With 1600 students, that's nearly $1000 worth of chicken wings per student.

[Cooked Crack]

MN Dems putting in work

[dfitzo53]

I fully support providing free or low-cost, healthy school lunches across the board. 

 

That said, somehow we've got to improve our process. I've taught for 16 years and most of the food is neither particularly appetizing nor particularly healthy. 

 

Tons of still good food (like whole fresh apples) goes straight into the garbage every day when Jonny decides not to eat it. We've got to do better.

[China]

On 2/11/2023 at 4:41 PM, Cooked Crack said:

MN Dems putting in work

 

Meanwhile, next door in South Dakota:

 

House Education committee says no to free school lunches

 

Less than a week after the Minnesota House of Representatives advanced a bill to guarantee free school meals, neighboring South Dakota voted to kill a similar bill.

 

Monday the House Education Committee heard testimony on HB 1221, a bill that would provide free school lunches for all public school students. Democrat Kadyn Wittman told the committee that no child should go hungry due to circumstances out of their control.

 

“Our public school systems take care of everything a student needs except guaranteeing them a meal every single day,” Wittman said.

 

Leading the opposition to HB 1221 was newly appointed Secretary of Education, Joseph Graves.

 

“The fiscal impact of this bill would be approximately $33.3 million,” Graves told committee members. “Additionally, we think that number would increase very quickly because then people would simply decline to fill out free and reduced lunch forms.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

When is this going to be the official party platform?

[tshile]

Honestly that reads to me like

”it’s cheap to feed children and I still don’t support it”

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Democrats demand universal free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack for kids in school

 

Dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate proposed legislation this week that would give all students from pre-school through high school three free meals a day plus a snack regardless of income, a move they said is needed to cope with the "record numbers" of American kids who are struggling with hunger.

 

The bill makes no mention of how the program would be funded or what it would cost. Many bills include language saying that Congress will appropriate whatever money is needed to fund a new program, or that funding will come from spending offsets or higher taxes.

 

"It is an international embarrassment that today, in the richest country in the history of the world, we are seeing record numbers of children and youth struggling with hunger on a daily basis," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the sponsor of the Senate legislation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Xameil]

7 hours ago, China said:

Democrats demand universal free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack for kids in school

 

 

"It is an international embarrassment that today, in the richest country in the history of the world, we are seeing record numbers of children and youth struggling with hunger on a daily basis," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the sponsor of the Senate legislation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Although he needs to get his facts straight on who the richest country in the history of the world is, he's got a point. Maybe a stretch of 3 meals and a snack, but certainly 2 meals at least. Should also have a opt in/opt out so families who are able to provide their kids with money for food (if not bringing from home) can still pay. That way it will lower the financial need for the free meals at least slightly.

 

Seeing as tho I am not known for my speaking skills...to use as an example, I would still have my child pay for lunch using her account because we are able to.

 

Hopefully that makes sense...Im tired...

[China]

Republicans Declare Banning Universal Free School Meals a 2024 Priority

 

States across the country are moving to provide universal free school meals to all our children. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to stop them from doing just that.

 

The Republican Study Committee (of which some three-quarters of House Republicans are members) on Wednesday released its desired 2024 budget, in which the party boldly declares its priority to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, from the School Lunch Program. Why? Because “CEP allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.”

 

The horror.

 

Of note is that the CEP is not even something every school participates in; it is a meal service program reserved for qualifying schools and districts in low-income areas. The program enables schools that predominantly serve children from low-income backgrounds to offer all students free breakfast and lunch, instead of means-testing them and having to manage collecting applications on an individual basis. As with many universal-oriented programs, it is more practically efficient and, as a bonus, lifts all boats. This is what Republicans are looking to eliminate.

 

It’s the kind of provision that many would want every school to participate in. Why not guarantee all our children are well fed as they learn and think about our world and their place in it, after all?

 

But indeed, as California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and as of this week, Vermont, all move to provide universal free school meals in one form or another—and at least another 21 states consider similar moves—Republicans are trying to whittle down avenues to accomplish that goal.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Chew]

Imagine claiming to be a Christian and wanting to cut funds for programs that feed poor kids.  ****ing scum. 

[The Sisko]

I don’t think most of them are Xtian. It’s just a box to check so they can be on brand for the party. In fact, I don’t think most of them really buy into 90% of the crap they spew. They’re just in it to move into the 1% and make sure their taxes stay low. Now about that part, I’m pretty certain they’re true believers.