Food Workers Fired as Mass. Students Denied Lunch

[desertvixen]

I understand the dilemma the school is in. If they let kids get free lunch every day, sooner or later nobody pays for lunch, and then they're in the red. But what they're supposed to do, morally, is offer a cheaper meal that is still filling - say, a sandwich and a piece of fruit - along with a call home informing the parents that they owe lots of money and pointing out that if the financial situation has changed they can fill out another lunch form to go on either free or reduced lunch midyear.

This is what my daughter's school does (Colorado). They also pretty much made filling the form out mandatory to see if we qualified for free lunch.

Remember, folks, no poverty in America except moral poverty! (See latest BS from Lori)

[guidedbybobafett]

I just want to introduce a caveat- I don't for one second believe those workers were acting of their own free will. I'm positive POSITIVE that there are strict guidelines that the company lays out and the workers are expected to follow in order to keep their jobs. It's completely outrageous and disgusting, but I'm not going to believe a huge corporation's response to outrage over the employees, especially when so many people have come out to say that the same thing has happened all over the country. It's not quite right to believe that different cafeteria workers in the US all independently decided to vindictively withhold food from children. Do I believe that a large company would make that their policy? Absolutely.

[bettertomarry]

Should this be moved to chatter?

[anniebgood]

In our working class town surrounded by higher dollar zip codes, the school district and the city provide free breakfasts and lunches to all children up to age 18 during the summer months. They are federally funded and no questions are asked. The kids come to the cafeteria at one of the middle schools and get fed.

I used to get into arguments with conservatives over free breakfasts and lunches when i was subbing in said district. I told these idiots that kids learn better with food in their belly and they feel better too. Of course they pointed out that most of the district was illegal immigrants....funny, I thought kids born in the US were citizens as well. Some people never learned.

Those workers should get a taste of their own medicine IMHO.

[keen23]

Our school doesn't deny anyone due to lack of lunch money. They do have sack lunch for the kids who's accounts are in the red (before I could sign up for auto debit, I'm guilty of forgetting to refill the accounts!), over $2. It consists of an apple, a plain milk and a cheese sandwich. Lunch is $2.20 a day.

I think free lunch is based on family size and the federal poverty line- it might be 125% of the federal poverty level, and go up from there, depending on how many people are in the family.

[notsocommon]

I understand the dilemma the school is in. If they let kids get free lunch every day, sooner or later nobody pays for lunch, and then they're in the red. But what they're supposed to do, morally, is offer a cheaper meal that is still filling - say, a sandwich and a piece of fruit - along with a call home informing the parents that they owe lots of money and pointing out that if the financial situation has changed they can fill out another lunch form to go on either free or reduced lunch midyear.

There is no excuse, whatsoever, for both making the kids go hungry AND humiliating them in front of their classmates.

What we really need, and won't get, is free lunch for all students.

At my daughter's school they get two 'freebies' and then a cheese sandwich and a milk. So at least they get something if they forget/ don't have $

[alba]

I just want to introduce a caveat- I don't for one second believe those workers were acting of their own free will. I'm positive POSITIVE that there are strict guidelines that the company lays out and the workers are expected to follow in order to keep their jobs. It's completely outrageous and disgusting, but I'm not going to believe a huge corporation's response to outrage over the employees, especially when so many people have come out to say that the same thing has happened all over the country. It's not quite right to believe that different cafeteria workers in the US all independently decided to vindictively withhold food from children. Do I believe that a large company would make that their policy? Absolutely.

Which makes it rather a shame that they've been fired for it, presumably as a scapegoat when the company realised they couldn't get away with it.

[gezykah]

This is what my daughter's school does (Colorado). They also pretty much made filling the form out mandatory to see if we qualified for free lunch.

Remember, folks, no poverty in America except moral poverty! (See latest BS from Lori)

I grew up in Massachusetts and they did the same to us here. In high school they pretty much admitted that not just money for lunch but other finding as well was tied into how many students in a district qualified for free lunch.

My high school used tickets for lunch which homeroom teachers distributed. There were only a few days a week when the food was good (Burgers should not be gray and shiny. Then there's the time the milk was so bad they were forced to change the distributor but I digress...) so many who qualified wouldn't bother to get their tickets every week. I didn't qualify but my homeroom teacher would always give me tickets since I helped her often and to any student that asked for them. It was pretty common for students to share tickets with each other as well so thankfully I never saw somebody go without or get publicly shamed like those students in the article did.

[debrand]

I know in one disctrict school lunch debt was so high collection agencies had to be notified because these were parents who didn't take the time to fill out free lunch forms but qualified. I know that's a few, but I grew up with a girl like this her grandparents got custody of her and her siblings when their father died I don't know how her mother lost custody, but I assume something must have happened. She would come to lunch hungry or with a sandwich and her grandma didn't give a shit if they ate or not and wouldn't fill out the damn forms and the kids suffered. I would sometimes try to sneak two lunches from the different checkouts on my list and was sometimes caught doing this, and the lunch staff told me about the forms her grandparents could have filled out but gave two shits. It irked me to no end and I did risk having action taken against me, but I couldn't bear to see them go hungry because her grandparent's didn't care.

My mother wouldn't fill out forms either so I started to do it for myself and my siblings. It wasn't a pride issue either. Mom was just lazy. I also wrote all our notes for being absence or tardy

[JesusFightClub]

Totally agree. That was company policy, not just some initiative by food workers to punish teh kiddiez. And of course the workers get canned when it backfires. Plus ca change.

At my school back in the olden days, it was a lot simpler. The teacher called out your name at registration and you went up to get your free/reduced lunch ticket if eligible, or if not you paid full whack in cash. If you forgot your money or spent it on the latest Just 17, then you cadged chips off your pals.