Via Chicago Tribune:
Faced with mounting unpaid lunch charges, Albuquerque Public Schools last month instituted a "cheese sandwich policy," serving a cold cheese sandwich, fruit and a milk carton to children whose parents are supposed to pay for some or all of their regular meals but fail to pick up the tab.
There is a lot that is troubling about this policy, but the main thing is the idea of making kids suffer because of their parents financial situations. Not only would this policy have a nutritional affect on the kids (since they don't get the variety offered by the hot lunch options) it also has a shaming affect, singling them out and making it clear to their peers that they are poor.
Tactics like this are becoming necessary in a worsening financial environment but it's sad to see that low-income children are the first to suffer.
What do you all think?
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As an educator, this has got to be one of the most absolutely shameful policies I have seen regarding public schools in recent months. There is no justification for its implementation and it makes me ashamed of my chosen profession, frustrating me to no end that I constantly have to put up with morons like the ones who instituted the policy.
My daughter's school district does this too (with PB&J). It has been policy for at least three years, and it breaks my heart to go into that cafeteria and see that handful of kids who try to cover up the fact that they have the "poor kid" lunch.
I definitely wouldn't want any kid to feel shame over economic status, but I think the much bigger problem with the situation you describe is that the kids who are ashamed at being identified as "poor" are reflecting the values that have been taught to them. Why are those kids being taught there is some stigma to having less money than others? Yes, I know this value is endemic in our capitalist culture, but so is the patriarchy, and I would hope that wouldn't discourage us from resisting the inculcation into our kids of these dehumanizing values.
At my daughter's elementary school. approximately 90% of the kids receive free or reduced price lunches. My daughter is one of the 10% who is not eligible, but she gets a free lunch anyway because it is cheaper for her school to give everyone a free lunch than it would be for them to keep track of who's eligible and who is not and who has paid or who has not! There is no stigma at my daughter's school regarding who eats what for lunch.
It's a nice thought that whatever these kids go through will make them stronger, but the fact is that some kids who experience teasing for being "less than" will eventually withdraw, which impacts their educational and social development. Schools can't control what the kids wear and exceptional ed classes are pretty easy to justify (all kids need to be taught at the level which best suits their academic needs and abilities). This, however, is an area where schools can - and should - step in for the benefit of the kids.
While I understand, and am sympathetic to, the school's position I am of the opinion that it is never okay to punish children for their parents' situation - and that is the exact result of this policy. The problem is that the public school lunch program needs a major overhaul. Schools do not get adequate funds to provide a quality meal to students at a reasonable price and, as this post demonstrates, many children are falling through the cracks and schools cannot afford to make up the difference. I don't think that blaming the individual schools or districts for trying to stay afloat is helpful, neither is assuming that parents are just too lazy or stupid to fill out the necessary forms to qualify for free lunch. What we have to do is make demands at the federal and state level that we make children and schools a priority. The talk isn't enough anymore and we need to take advantage of the fact that majority in the House and Senate while it lasts.
Sorry this reply should have gone elsewhere. My computer freaked out on me and I reposted in the wrong spot.
Thats fucked up. i dont think its rightto shame the kids when its the parents fault.
...the parents' fault?? Umm.. okay.
Right.What are you arguing?
I remember a prepaid lunch possibility for students in my high school whose families couldn't afford hot lunches on their own. It was really common at my school (we bussed in a lot of inner-city kids), and seemed to be a good program funded, in part, by state money. Does this not exist in Chicago?
The story was reported by the Chicago Tribune, but took place in Albuquerque. Just have to defend my home town...
If you read the article, students in the free lunch program will still be served hot meals. If there is a program that is specifically designed to feed children whose parents can't cover it, I don't see a problem giving cold cheese sandwiches to kids who forget their lunch/lunch money that particular day.
You have to be incredibly poor to qualify for the free lunch program, which doesn't take into account things like a parent's excessive debt or other money-eaters that can make those who earn a supposedly middle-class income unable to properly feed their children. I was one of those kids - we finally qualified for food stamps when my stepmom quit her "middle class" job because she was in her last trimester, and this was before "welfare reform" - and my growth was stunted because of it.
The guidelines for a family of 4 are $27,000 a year for free lunch and $39,000 a year for reduced price lunch. While I understand that in places like NY, that's "incredibly poor," it's not in many parts of the country. In fact, in lots of areas, those numbers cover the majority of kids. The median household income for a family of 4 in the US is only $50,000.
I distinctly remember free lunch being VERY easy to get at my high school, particularly if you had an "ethnic" sounding last name. A friend of a friend whose last name was Gomez got free lunch because his last name was hispanic, even though he was about as upper-middle-class as they get.
I wish I was making this up.
I eat a cheese sandwich and an apple for lunch every day and have for years and years now. As a child, it was bologna sandwiches, no apple. I don't see a problem with this lunch.
lol Same here. I ate a sandwich and fruit everyday of my school life. There is no problem with it. Fruit, dairy, and grains, fits nicely into the food pyramid.
yeah, same here. I never had any hot meals at school during my childhood, does that mean I was deprived? Oh no!
I used to steal my lunches. My moms lunches sucked and the food at my school sucked, it was like rubber. So I would steal all the candys from my peers sack lunches. Needless to say, I was a bit chubbers.
Me too. I was perfectly happy as a kid with a cheese or maybe peanut butter sandwich, a piece of fruit, and milk. Those are all healthy things, right? I'm not sure I understand why it's "shaming" the kids.
I remember when we qualified for the city school breakfast program, and they served us these "squares" of scrambled eggs from this massive tray of scrambled eggs. Boy were they nasty, give me a cheese sandwich any day!
I ate the "poor kids'" lunch at school and it was awesome.
Sandwich, fruit, milk. Great lunch.
I have absolutely no idea why people are against this policy.
Why should kids be ashamed of getting a free or reduced-price lunch?
Why are we teaching children to be ashamed of their socioeconomic class? It's not their fault if they're poor and sometimes it's not the parents' fault either.
Should we be against singling out kids who are talented and putting them in advanced classes?
Or singling out kids who are struggling and putting them in easier classes?
Should everyone wear a uniform so that no one gets singled out because their parents can't afford fancy clothing?
School is hard, adolescence is hard. Getting to eat the same food as everyone else isn't going to change that.
Ultimately "trials" like this are just going to make children stronger, more appreciative of the things they have, and perhaps even better, harder workers in the future.
It's a nice thought that whatever these kids go through will make them stronger, but the fact is that many kids who experience teasing for being "less than" will eventually withdraw, which impacts their educational and social development - and harms us all in the process. Schools can't control what the kids wear and exceptional ed classes are pretty easy to justify (all kids need to be taught at the level which best suits their academic needs and abilities). This, however, is an area where schools can - and should - step in for the benefit of the kids.
While I understand, and am sympathetic to, the school's position I am of the opinion that it is never okay to punish children for their parents' situation - and that is the exact result of this policy. The problem is that the public school lunch program needs a major overhaul. Schools do not get adequate funds to provide a quality meal to students at a reasonable price and, as this post demonstrates, many children are falling through the cracks and schools cannot afford to make up the difference. I don't think that blaming the individual schools or districts for trying to stay afloat is helpful, neither is assuming that parents are just too lazy or stupid to fill out the necessary forms to qualify for free lunch. What we have to do is make demands at the federal and state level that we make children and schools a priority. The talk isn't enough anymore and we need to take advantage of the fact that majority in the House and Sentate while it lasts.
And really, a cheese sandwich is much healthier than some of the "hot lunches" school districts serve. I personally wouldn't allow my children to eat school lunch more than once in a while. So while there can be a discussion about the shaming of impoverished children, I don't really think nutrition is an issue given what many schools serve.
a cheese sandwich every single day isn't healthy. these kids aren't in prison. prisoners get better variety than that. there's nothing wrong with sandwiches but a cheese sandwich every single fkg day? that shit is just crazy.
When I heard about the cheese sandwich policy, I thought it was great because the school is providing a free meal for students whose parents can't afford a hot meal lunch for them. in India, there is a similar government program that provides free rice and daal (lentils) for poor students enrolled in public school programs
I don't see what's the big deal is.
This is in addition to the lunch program already in place that provides kids hot lunches for free or reduced cost to parents who qualify. I really don't see why this warrants outrage. Kids of parents who are financially strained qualify for those free lunches and if for some reason they have not signed up for the program (which I see as a parental failure, hardly a failure on the part of schools), they STILL get fed. Who cares if it's cold?
Yeah, who cares if those poor kids are embarrassed? Who cares if they are teased mercilessly by their peers because of it? That's what you deserve if you're poor. /snark
Unfortunately children will tease other children for what they don't have regardless of whether or not they are given free lunches by the school. Contrary to your assumption (and rage) that I just don't care about the emotional well-being of children, I feel a great deal of sympathy. It's not fair that Suzy has to eat a cheese sandwich because her parents can't afford lunch and don't qualify for the free lunch program. It's also not fair that John's parents can't afford new clothes and is forced to wear items he's outgrown long ago. It's especially unfair when Maria can't get the medical care she needs.
There are a lot of things in life that are unfortunate and unfair. Those in poverty experience a great deal of pain both physical (health) and mental (harassment and social stigmas), that are completely unfair. However, the school system simply can't be held responsible for all that is wrong in the world. They have to work with what they have and if that means a child who would otherwise go hungry is fed a cheese sandwich, then I support it. I say that knowing that these kids may get harassed, but understanding that the alternative is not having anything to eat at all.
I also whole heartedly support doing everything we can to teach children not to be cruel to one another for what they have, but in order to do that, most adults have to change their entire value system.
Gee, maybe I am pissed off at a world that treated me like I was "less than" when I was a poor child, not specifically you? No, surely not, people who have been poor are too stupid to figure out who they should be mad at! I mean, WTF?
"if that means a child who would otherwise go hungry is fed a cheese sandwich"
Those are not the only two options.
"Those are not the only two options."
They are if the school wants to stay on their budget. When the school serves lunches to kids who pay, they get 24 cents in cash and 20.75 cents worth of food (agricultural surplus) from the USDA per lunch. When the school serves a free lunch, they get $2.57 in cash plus the commodity food. So when a school gives out a free meal off the books, they're not only losing the cost of whatever went into that meal, they're also losing either 44 cents or $2.77 worth of future food. Most public schools now don't have enough money to lose that much through the lunch program -- the money has to come from somewhere, and that "somewhere" will be teachers or books or something.
And yes, I do realize that's not what you were intentionally saying, but that's how it comes across.
I can see how kids would be singled out with this cheese sandwich policy while all the other kids get to eat either a regular school lunch or lunch from home.
At my daughter's school here in CA, non-payers are only supposed to get a yogurt, crackers, and some milk, but the lunch cashier has told me that she doesn't have the heart to let any kids get this substandard meal, so she lets them have a regular lunch.
Sorry to say it, but this isn't a new policy. I am 23 and when I was in elementary school, we had the same thing going on. Except we didn't get fruit cups or cheese. It was a peanut butter sandwich with almost no peanut butter and a carton of milk - not even chocolate. And Yeah, it was pretty damn embarrassing. It happened to me at lunches multiple times and on field trips.
Sometimes I think it is used as a "harsh" reminder to be responsible. But parents who send their kids to school hoping they'll get a pity lunch is another issue. If you need help financially, I don't think the school is going to chide you for making sure your child is fed, so there is no excuse like "its embarrassing" or what have you.
Agreed - I'm 20 and we had this in elementary school; if you forgot your money, you got a nasty peanut butter sandwich with milk. It wasn't very fun, but it was better than nothing. I don't remember much teasing going on for it, but I attended a very wealthy district so it was usually just a "your parent forgot to give you money" thing.
I also see this as a good thing, rather than a bad thing.
I know there were several times when I would go to get my lunch ticket and find out that the payment hadn't been processed for my hot lunch when I was in grade school. It had to have happened at least 4 or 5 times. Those days I ate a bite of everyone else's lunch and would get snacks from my teacher (who was awesome enough to understand that the school's policy about not letting us charge a meal was lame). And I certainly wasn't the only kid this happened too. Plenty of my peers had a similar problem because payment processing was pretty slow.
This seems like a much better option. These kids get meals while their parents get back on track, or apply for the free hot meals.
Also, the article clearly states that the children who qualify for free lunch are not effected by the policy.
I can see where the anger is coming from- but I doubt the school has $300k to spare. Public schools are poor too. So what would you rather have them do? Because they can just as easily give them no lunch. Plus, that meal sounds healthier than what most kids choose for lunch when they have options.
As a free lunch kids growing up, I can safely tell you- kids will know you're poor either way. Whether it's having a cheese sandwich or having to tell the lady at the cash register "I'm on the free lunch list" and her having to look you up (like I had to do as a kid. That's a MUCH easier way to spot the poor kid.) or whether it's not having the cool clothes, the kids already know.
I decided to pop back in here, check the comment strand, and I am totally surprised as to some of the positive responses. The problem here does not begin and end literally with the freaking cold cheese sandwich for Christ's sake. The article was written within the context of tough economic times. With that, we hear from time to time that public schools must adjust by cutting corners. Additionally, children are subjected to compulsory attendance to roughly 180 days of school per year. Given the mandate, why are not ALL lunches free? A tough economy should not require cuts to schools, they should require cuts to defense, for instance. Articles such as this and these kinds of programs point out the fact that schools are strapped, but no one here at all asks why should schools be strapped? F-ing stupid, just f-ing stupid.
First of all, if a parent is experiencing tough times, they can fill out the paperwork and qualify their child for free lunch. That means FREE lunch every day.
Could this be more about negligent parenting than the BIG,BAD, school system?
As stated above, this is a common practice! Although the article gives the context of "tough economic times, this sort of lunch policy happens all the time.
My childrea attended a suburban school where hardly any children received free or reduced lunches. If the parent forgot to pre-pay or give the child $$, then they got a PBJ sandwich and milk. Parents forgetting to give kids $$ is common even in middle-class districts.
Schools are on limited budgets ALL THE TIME. It's not like they are letting children go hungry. The lunch may be cold but it's healthy and filling.
Amen.
Amen and a cheese sandwich as healthy and filling? You all must be out of your old-fashioned, silver haired freaking minds!
For the record, I have long, flowing, chesnut hair. Not one gray hair (and I don't color).
You should be so lucky when you reach my age--which must be around 102 if I dare think a regular sandwich is okay for human consumption.
Ok, frankly I'm shocked that most of you think this okay.
1) This is not about whether a cheese sandwich is an adequate or acceptable lunch. The point is that certain kids are being singled out, forced to eat a different lunch, as a tactic to shame/force their parents into paying. And these kids are being singled out because their parents are poor. Not okay.
2) This is different than the free lunch, which some students qualify for if their parents are willing to do the paperwork and meet the requirements.
3) Punishing children to encourage parental responsibility is not okay in my book. Ever.
If the parents are poor enough that they can't afford lunch for their kids, the kids would be on the free lunch program and get a free hot meal. These sorts of programs are more about parents who forget or put off paying the bill. You can argue about whether their kids should have to deal with that or not, but its not about punishing poor people-- the poor people are already being provided with free hot meals.
It can't be fun for the kids, but at least they are getting a free lunch. Would you rather have the school give them no lunch? No one wants a kid to be sitting in class hungry, but this meal sounds perfectly adequate. Its not like public schools have money to spare to keep on providing lunch all year to people who don't pay the bill.
I've read about this before and most schools experiments with policies like this have shown that its the fastest way to get parents to pay the bill. The kid still gets a nutritious lunch, but the parents are motivated to pay off the bill. So that the school can afford to keep buying things like textbooks. Public schools are so badly underfunded already, they can't afford to just let people slide on what little bills they have.
Seriously, what do you want them to do? Ignore the outstanding bills, keep providing free food, and cut back on textbooks or chalk or something instead?
To recap: yes, its not perfect, but I don't see you offering an alternate solution. What should they do when they just don't have the money to provide free lunches?
(Honestly they probably can't afford to keep providing cheese sandwiches either, but they're cheaper in the short run and a motivation to pay in the long run.)
How is this punishing kids? The school isn't obligated to feed children whose parents either can't pay or can't be bothered to sign up for the free lunch program. And yet, despite the fact that these schools are desperate for funding, they are. If a child doesn't have a coat and they are given a sweatshirt from the lost and found/donation pile, is that singling them out too? Sure, the sweatshirt may be ill-fitting and unstylish which will undoubtedly expose the fact that they can't afford one of their own. But what should the school do? It's not the school's responsibility to dress children but should they leave them out in the cold? Perhaps they should be obligated to buy them a nice coat that matches the other students so no one can possibly tell it's a donor? Danyell said it best, kids will know when other kids are poor regardless of whether or not they are eating cold cheese sandwiches.
Instead of merely being shocked that so many of us are arguing this is ok, why not consider this from another angle? It's not punishment. It's providing a need that their parents aren't meeting DESPITE the fact that there is a program that's available specifically to help them.
Excellent comment
The school isn't obligated to feed children whose parents either can't pay or can't be bothered to sign up for the free lunch program
-------------
Seriously?!
Yes, they sure as HELL are obligated!! Those children are in THEIR CARE for 8 hours and thus have a responsibility to feed, shelter, and keep them safe!
I put my children in public schools, if they held the attitude "not our obligation" kind of crap with MY kids, you'd better believe I'd yank my kid out so damn fast and have a lawyer crawling up their asses!
Shaming my kids to get me to pay is fucked up. My son gets reduced lunches, and sometimes his account balance runs out - the school DOES NOT SEND ME A NOTICE WHEN THIS HAPPENS!!!!!!!!!!!
I get my poor son coming up to me IN TEARS because he had to go somewhere else to get a piece of fruit, some bread with peanut butter, and a milk.
My son is 9 years old and eats A LOT.... that isn't enough to tide his little tummy over.
So it's my fucking fault if his account runs out and I am not aware of it, and yet he has to pay the price?
Yeah, screw you all who are shrugging your shoulders.
It sucks when your child comes home and is so hungry he pretty much eats the first thing he can find.
Not the school's obligation? Do you have kids?
Miriam, I'm completely with you, and I'm offended at the lack of sympathy in these comments.
I'm in high school, and I'm a "free lunch kid". Now, speaking as a student at a school where "free lunch kids" are very common, this policy and these comments especially are still striking a very bad chord with me.
Like you said, it's not about the cheese sandwich (although, have you ever had a cheese sandwich from public school? They're the most despicable thing I've ever had the displeasure of eating). This is about the fact that students are being punished because they're parents can't pay for lunch.
"Oh, they're parents should just apply for free lunch!" It's not always that easy. In New York, the process isn't always easy. I have a friend who still pay the outrageous prices for school lunch because her parents "make too much money", even though she lives in a trailer with hardly any water- just her, her parents, and her lazy adult brother. She sleeps in the kitchen. Yes, people could assume by looking at her that she is "poor", but does it really need to be shouted from the rooftops that according to the state she deserves less food than any other student? She doesn't get enough food as it is.
Then, there are instanced like my mother, who was reluctant for years to sign me up for free lunch because "she has too much dignity". When I was on reduced lunch (25 cents), I was the one paying for my lunch, and those quarters add up.
I'm just so offended, I hope I got my point across. How incredibly shaming and discouraging is it for a child to be handed a pathetic piece of sticky yellow-orange cheese because her parents had other things to pay for, like electricity. School lunch is sometimes the only meal a student will eat all day, why reduce it to an embarrassing fucking piece of cheese?
My heart is breaking at the lack of sympathy in these comments, and I hope none of you one day have children who will be forced to eat cold cheese while their friends have chicken nuggets and chocolate milk, all because you missed a lunch payment.
wow, sorry for misspelling "their" so many times. I'm too angry.
Thank you so much for your comments and sharing your story. I couldn't agree more.
I'd also like to add that in some states it's simply not a matter of filling out one piece of paper and, depending on the area, the maximum income to qualify for free lunch may be low, but not low enough for certain families who truly need it to qualify.
AGREED. i work in a public school, and of course you can tell who the poorer kids are, but like you said, there is no need to further advertise it by giving them a sub-standard meal (truly, all the people arguing that this meal is "healthy and nutritious" i want what you're smoking!).
also, it's not an either/or situation. give the kid a free lunch, and add it to their bill. christ.
Adding it to their bill doesn't work when no one pays the bill.
But if they get any benefits from the school, they're still being singled out for being poor. So why is one good and one bad? Because one seems nice and one seems mean?
The kid in the article says the lunch makes her feel sick. Is that from shame? She never says so. Maybe she just is sick of cheese sandwiches. When I was growing up and my mom made ever so slightly too much for free lunch, I got cheese sandwiches all the time too - but these were from home. And yeah, I got sick of them. But an important thing I learned as a kid was it's always better to be eating than hungry.
Considering all the inequities that poor people have to put up with, I really am not getting why this is being overblown.
So you're in favor of school uniforms and restrictive haircuts as well?
Because kids who can't afford designer jeans and the latest iCrap or fancy hairstyles certainly get singled out as much as kids eating this food.
Bad argument. Not comparable. The school doesn't make them wear cheap clothes. It does make them eat cheap sandwiches. You can't go comparing administration with society.
What? The school isn't making them eat anything, its nicely providing food so they can have something to eat when their parents should have provided either food or money. If a kid doesn't have a coat, is it the school's responsibility to not only buy him a coat, but buy him a coat that is just as nice as the coats the other kids have?
Wow. You took that out of context. How about you reverse what you just said, and then you have my argument.
And no. The kid doesn't have to eat the food, but for a lot of kids, that all they get all day. So thanks for saying that kids should starve.
If the only food a kid gets all day is a school lunch that their parents haven't paid for or gotten covered by the state, there are BIG problems in that family. If I was aware of a kid whose parents did not feed them literally ever, I would call child protective services or the police, not say "oh well, its the school's fault that the kid is starving."
Wow. You've been very privileged haven't you. You think the parents starve their kids on purpose? You think they don't want to feed them? There *are* starving people in this country in case you haven't noticed. Get on the clue train. They *can't* feed their kids. Not won't. Can't. How dare you belittle the lives of others and then suggest child services to they can be broken up as a family and abused. Shame on you for being so self-centered.
I didn't say they were starving their kids on purpose. But the fact is, if the kids are starving something needs to be done about it, and unless we completely overhaul the school system (say, fully-funded boarding schools that provide food and clothing), that is not the responsibility of the elementary school.
If a parent can't afford to feed their kid at all, odds are they qualify for the free lunch and probably free breakfast programs. But if they somehow don't, or haven't done the paperwork, or whatever the reason is, and they really can't feed their kid, then the kid is not safe with them. It might not be their fault, but we have to look at the best interest of the child here. Its the parent's responsibility to make sure the kid is fed, whether that means applying for the right aid programs or whatever. If they can't feed their kids, for any reason, then the parent isn't fulfilling their role as a parent. It might not be their fault, and that sucks, but what's the alternative-- leave kids in a home where they are STARVING so that we aren't unfair to the parents?
If there are so many children who don't eat at all outside of school lunches, what are they doing during vacations?
MissKitty, it is roughly a zillion times (as per my ultra scientific calculations) cheaper for the government to provide a little extra in the way of WIC, food stamps, and reduced price/free lunches to families who cannot feed their children instead of putting each and every single hungry child in foster care, because foster parents receive money each month for the children they take in. Quite frequently, foster parents (though certainly not all!) take in foster children for the caregiver money, or for a free nanny or the like. Like, I would say 5 of those fighter jets someone mentioned cheaper then providing alternate homes for these children.
Well yes, and part of what I said was that if a child is not being fed at home, the parents should apply for those various programs. Maybe they need help doing so. But there are official programs in place to provide this food so that the kids don't have to go into foster care-- it is not the job of the school to just keep giving them food off the books.
I realize my response got a little disjointed. To recap:
I'm not saying its the parents fault if they can't feed their kids. But the fact is that if their kids are starving, then something needs to be done about it whether it was their fault or not. I would let CPS make that call- maybe what they would do is not remove the kids from the home, but help the parents apply for welfare of some sort.
The point is, it is not the responsibility of the elementary school to supply a child's lunch, let alone ALL of a child's food. I'm sure they'd love to but they just aren't funded for that. (I'd be all for giving them more funding, but that doesn't help with their decision right now).
Well, I was never making an argument pro or con since I, myself, am somewhat torn. My original statement which, no offense was taken rather harshly, was that the comparison Logrus was drawing between clothing and food was a bad one. You can't compare materialism (i.e. iPods, designer labels) with means for livelihood. I was merely pointing out this false comparison, and was taken aback by how you jumped the gun. I apologize for calling you self-centered. Truce?
I think the point of that comparison was that several people specifically said its NOT the nutritional value or quantity of the food that's the issue, its the social stigma that has become attached to it. from that point of view, a comparison with a nice coat totally fits.
However, if you're worried that the food just isn't good enough, that's a different point. Although I would still say that its not meant to be a long term solution so it only needs to be healthy enough to eat occasionally or for a few days, not to eat every day all year.
(Man, I wish this commenting format made it easier to see the post I'm replying to while I'm typing).
Anyway, sure, truce. I was never mad at anyone in particular, there are way too many people posting here to keep track.
Misskitty, you're freaking kidding me?
Poor people should have their kids taken away?
A child needs to be fed.
There are many many other things the parents can do about the problem-- signing up for free lunch programs, various aid programs, food stamps, going to food banks, going to soup kitchens, or whatever. But if the child is not getting ANY food at home, that's a problem that needs to be changed. Hopefully the parents can change it by some other method like those listed above, but if they really honestly can't feed the child then yes, they are not doing a decent job taking care of the child. It might not be their fault, and its sad, but the kid needs to be taken care of by someone who can at least provide food, shelter, and clothing.
Look, I'm not happy about a situation like that. But, I'm not sure what the alternative is that you all are suggesting. If we know of a child who is not being fed AT ALL by their parents, what should we do? Just ignore it, and say oh well, they get one meal a day at school so its fine? I'm not sure what you expect them to do during weekends and vacations.
Maybe instead of having summer school, schools should be required to run free buffets all summer for anyone who's hungry. Of course that would use up all their funding so they wouldn't be able to have any teachers in the summer, but apparently its their responsibility to make sure kids don't go hungry, and that's more important than all their other responsibilities like education.
Here, let's consider a hypothetical.
Say you're an elementary school teacher. There's a child in your class who is not in the free lunch program and yet never brings a lunch. The only food he eats is the free lunch the school provides to him anyways. He tells you that he doesn't get any food at home-- not breakfast, not dinner, and no meals on weekends. He's small for his age and always tired.
So what do you do? Do you say "I'm sorry Jimmy, but its not your parents' fault that they're poor and I wouldn't want to punish them for that, so I'm not going to do anything and you'll just have to keep surviving on the school lunches alone"?
Or would you call social services and say look, this kid is clearly malnourished, you need to check into that home and figure out what the problem is.
The point is that certain kids are being singled out, forced to eat a different lunch, as a tactic to shame/force their parents into paying. And these kids are being singled out because their parents are poor. Not okay.
I didn't see anything in the article that indicates that this policy is being used as a shaming tactic, as you described. I think the more likely explanation is that the cheese sandwich lunch is cheaper than giving the kids regular meals. Also, the article states that 60% of kids in New Mexico receive free or reduced price lunches (it may be different in Albuquerque). If receiving a cheese sandwich lunch identifies a child as being poor, I don't know how much of a stigma there would be to being identified as poor when 3/5 of all kids are in the same situation.
I agree, it doesn't look like this is a shaming tactic. Frankly, it's a way to help the parents (and the kids), so the kids are able to get food in their stomachs during the school day. I also don't understand how this can be seen as a punishment...yes, i get that it can be embarrassing for kids, but it's more of a punishment and unethical to not feed them. At least they get something (and quite healthy too, better than some hot lunches I remember from school), especially considering the financial situations many schools are in.
But it's not the school's place to feed the children. I agree that money is spent on ludicrous things in this country (like 94 million for abstinence only education) but the government should be increasing WIC and food stamps-not forcing schools to feed the kids. There's =something really wrong in a first world country where kids go hungry. Something wrong with all of the priorities in this country.
Why not? It's the school's job to teach the children, and teaching cannot be effective if it's not supplemented with proper nutrition. All of the parents pay taxes; why shouldn't those taxes go towards making sure their children have quality food at lunchtime, enough to fill their stomachs with?
Unless we radically alter the way we fund schools (which I support), then it's not possible because of the budget constraints of schools. Have you looked closely at school district budgets? Personnel and transportation are 80-90% of most budgets. When you add in some other unfunded mandates, then there's very little discretionary in the school budgets. There's just not enough for the schools to provide for free lunch to all kids. I would love to see a different funding system, but until there is one, schools are limited in what they can do because they don't have much.
In theory I wish we gave much more money to public schools and less money to, say, foreign wars. But the elementary school is not in charge of that-- they have to work with what they have.
My guess is the best way to channel this outrage is not at the school that provides the free sandwiches, but to write letters to the government telling them that our schools need lots more funding all the time and they need to stop wasting money on other stupid things.
But the fact is, right now, the schools cannot afford to provide free lunches for kids who aren't in the subsidized free lunch program.
At the risk of repeating what's been said on here before: yeah, it sucks that the schools can't afford to pay for food for the kids, but it's _not_ the school's place to do so. They have salaries to pay, property to rent or pay prop. taxes on, programs to fund. The fact that they can give the kids ANYthing is great-in other countries, kids simply don't eat at all. I agree with a lot of people who have said here that there's no reason to deliberately shame children whose parents don't pay for their lunches, but the fact that they get a sandwich puts these kids nutritionally above millions of other children in other countries. The school has gone above and beyond the bare minimum. and unless you know a way for any school to raise enough money to feed all these kids (and if you do, please suggest it to Congress and the Dept. of Ed), and taxes simply aren't enough, especially in places with low value property, then you can't really blame the school where the system has failed these kids and their parents.
Way to jump to conclusions. I haven't blamed the school at all. I don't blame the school. I blame the society that says that these kids should just be happy with a damn cheese sandwich.
In fact, I haven't seen anyone specifically blame the school at all. So stop putting words in people's mouths.
Wax ghost, you said:
"Why not? It's the school's job to teach the children, and teaching cannot be effective if it's not supplemented with proper nutrition. All of the parents pay taxes; why shouldn't those taxes go towards making sure their children have quality food at lunchtime, enough to fill their stomachs with?"
You asked why the school couldn't feed the kids, and I answered that. It sounds to me like you're saying that the school isn't doing something correctly as per how they're spending any money they get for running their programs: I read this story, and that's not the idea I got. If you're saying you meant your post as an indictment of society as a whole, and not of the schools, then yes, I misunderstood you. I didn't intend to put words in your mouth. I gave my opinion of what you posted; please don't be so impolite. What's the point?
zp27, that is how I meant it.
I apologize for being impolite to you but I'm shocked and disgusted by so much of this thread, it's hard for me not to. But I am honestly sorry for getting mad at you.
Fair enough. This will be my last post on the matter, and I just want to say that I'm sorry f I offended you. I read the thread, and I think this is very personal for you, and it's not a problem that was so personal to me, so I understand now why you were angry. I think we can disagree on certain aspects of this story, but I hope you understand that I don't mean to denigrate anyone who finds themselves in a precarious financial situation, and I don't think that any person should ever be made to feel like less of a person because of the money they do or don't make. A lot of the world is bullshit, and I think we agree on that.
Thanks. I'm usually much better about keeping a cool head but this apparently touched a major nerve! I'm glad you and I could find common ground, though.
Thank you for your understanding. It means a lot to me.
In Michigan you can apply for reduced-pay lunch program (actually I think it's a federal program). It's free or reduced price, I'm not sure if we have a free milk program any more (I think we did when I was a kid). All parents can pre-pay for lunch money (for full, subsidized or to get kids more).
Then kids just show their ID card so their peers don't know if the kids pre-paid or got it subsidized or it was free since no one need exchange money.
FYI, the line goes faster if you pre-pay and your kids don't have to rush to eat lunch (ca$h takes much longer).
It's a great system IF the parents apply for the lunch program and if they pay for the portions they need to pay for. It's really hard for the schools to collect the money from the parents sometimes (really really hard). Schools don't have the time/staff (read as money) to collect the money; it's a big burden for the schools. When schools start computerizing the cash registers in the cafeteria's is when they notice how much food they are really giving away and not collecting. Some schools out-source their lunch program so it's a third party company who's selling the food (who would be the group that is giving away the food).
Also, it's hard for kids/parents to qualify for the free program when they are illegally attending the district from across district boundaries.
Many schools these days don't have the money to give away free food either that's not what school taxes are for). But many schools do have some kind of free food policy so kids don't go hungry: I've seem peanut butter sandwiches, salad bars and (now) cheese sandwiches.
And in contradiction to some of what I said above (I'm just telling you how some of it 'works'):
Personally, I don't think it's a 6-year-old child's problem that their family doesn't have enough money for food. Somehow this needs to be fixed and made better.
I'm sorry, but I don't see what the big outrage is. A cheese sandwich, fruit, and milk is a BAD lunch? And as for singling out, how does this single kids out any more than free lunch? Take this from a girl who has been on both the advantaged child side and the free lunch 'cause I didn't have a real home side.
On the advantaged side, I had basically the same lunch as these kids whose parents supposedly "forgot" or hadn't paid the required hot lunch money. I usually had an apple or an orange, some sort of sandwich (ketchup and turkey, or cheese and mustard...I know, I was a strange child), and then some Capri Sun. It's really not that bad of a lunch. I'm still (mostly) healthy and I never felt ashamed of that lunch. In fact, a lot of kids liked to trade with me and I liked to trade with them. Nothing wrong with a good ole sandwich and some fruit. It's better than the greasy pizza and slimy fries most of the kids with hot lunches got.
On the free lunch side, however, I was limited to a sub sandwich every day. Yes, EVERY DAY I had to have a sub (with limited choices in meat, dairy, etc.) and either a milk or a small juice. This happened while I was attending a school full of mainly upper class kids. Was I ashamed? Sort of. It was pretty obvious that I was a "poor" kid (they even listed me as "homeless," which just sort of put the salt in the wound) and needless to say, kids kinda looked down on me. But you know what? I SURVIVED.
I think this is actually a good idea. Obviously, free lunch kids still get a normal meal, and kids whose parents haven't paid the tab get a meal instead of going without or having to have the school pay for the kids lunches when the parents should be. If there is a financial issue in the family, then they can certainly file for a free lunch.
There is nothing shameful or disgusting about this. At my elementary school, if you didn't have money, you'd get a PB&J sandwich and that's it. Now THAT's a little unfair.
I'm glad you SURVIVED, but, according to you, why does a kid have to die for this to be a significant problem?
Um, are you serious? I meant "I SURVIVED" as in "IT WASN'T THAT BIG OF A DEAL." I am all for helping children out and no, no child should have to suffer for any mistake their parents make. But seriously? Why is being given a CHEESE SANDWICH considered such a heinous crime? It's not like they're stamping "I DIDN'T PAY FOR MY LUNCH" in ink on the child's head!
Clearly, it is better to die from starvation than to suffer from embarrassment and shame.
/sarcasm
I'm also shocked at all the comments which don't see a problem with this policy.
"Tactics like this are becoming necessary in a worsening financial environment but it's sad to see that low-income children are the first to suffer."
I don't think tactics like this should EVER be considered neccessary, for all the reasons Miriam listed. Like Skippy said, why are these schools strapped in the first place? Why should kids--especially poor kids--be the first to suffer when the economy does? How about cancelling this little trip to Afghanistan Obama is planning for our troops and give kids a decent meal (and a lot more)?
Its not that they're considered necessary-- its that they ARE necessary? What, honestly, do you want them to do? If they keep providing free lunches (for kids who don't qualify for the other free lunch programs) the money will have to come from somewhere-- maybe they can fire a teacher, cram two classes together, and provide free lunches for 20 kids for a year!
(Obviously that first sentence was not supposed to have a question mark. )
Wow--quite frankly, I'm stunned that everyone is excusing this shameful practice.
The debate is not whether a cheese sandwich is an adequate lunch. Meaning has been assigned to the cold cheese sandwich; it has been constructed to represent a lunch that is "less than" the hot lunch by the very means of its implementation as a punishment to children whose parents don't pay for the hot lunch.
I agree wholeheartedly with Miriam and others who have noted that children should not be socially shamed--especially at a time in their lives when cruelty from their peers can be unbearable--as a backhanded way to punish poor families who can't afford to provide them with lunch every day. Maybe there are some families who could pay and do not, but the cheese sandwich system doesn't punish those (probably few) people. It punishes the children from the families who truly can't pay for lunch every day.
Free lunch doesn't cover every child whose family cannot afford lunch every day. Not all families are willing or able to fill out the paperwork, some do not have legal status, some families don't qualify on paper, etc...there are many reasons why this system is not perfect. But there's no excuse for individual children to be shamed or singled out because of systemic poverty.
Man after coming back here I am really liking that so many people are responding to the issue. I really didn't see it as a big deal, although I am coming around to see the point that certain kids may have issues with the program.
My question now is, if this isn't the answer what is? If there is an option that better serves these kids I would be all for it, but I don't actually see what might work better from everyone's standpoint.
I didn't see anything in the article that supports your assertion that meaning has been assigned to the cheese sandwich lunch. All it signifies is that the parent(s) of the child has not paid for previous lunches. It doesn't indicate why payment has not been made. And even if kids at the school believe that receiving the cheese sandwich lunch means that a child's family is "poor", I emphatically reject the suggestion that acknowledgment of this fact "punishes" or "socially shames" the child or the family. if this is the meaning that kids impute to receiving the lunch, it is the responsibility of the school to challenge this belief and reinforce that a family having less money than others is not a condition to be ashamed of. Treating a child's economic status as a horrendous condition that must be kept hidden at all costs only reinforces those who disparage it.
I don't understand why people automatically assume that if you don't qualify for the free lunch program, you can definitely afford lunch for your kids. The income levels tend to be REALLY low for these programs and don't take into account things like the number of kids in daycare, any food allergies (my son is allergic to dairy, meaning we have to supply his daycare with soy milk, which is a lot more expensive than milk), etc... Where I live, I think the limit is like 36 or 37k for a family of four. That's not a lot of money, especially if you still have a child in daycare at 150-175 a week and your school age child goes to an after school program for 100 dollars a week. And if you don't qualify for free lunch, you are certainly not going to qualify for daycare subsidies. Should parents be sending a lunch with their kids? Absolutely. Sometimes it's not just that easy- take a single parent working a night shift, who may get home just in time to see the bus pull away or who didn't get paid for whatever reason (lack of hours at work coming to mind) and didn't get a change to get to the grocery store. Are we really saying that we think having hungry kids is acceptable? A cheese sandwich for a child who is expected to participate in gym and recess is not enough. I understand schools have to have a budget but I don't think it's at all ok to shame children because their parent forgot/can't afford lunch and I really don't think it's at all ok to let kids go hungry to prove a point. It makes me want to send extra food to school, just in case someone can't provide a lunch.
I understand where you're coming from. It seems to me, though, that the better strategy then would be to widen the incomes that qualify for free/reduced lunch (as well as food stamps, etc). I don't know what level of government pays for it though, so maybe that's too difficult for individual school systems to deal with...
When I was in school, if I ran out of lunch money, I just quietly bummed a bit of food from my friends or skipped. If I had known better, maybe I would have gotten food, but it just didn't occur to me that they would have given me food anyway. I think the way this is carried out is important here--if they're trying to do it to make a point, I understand why that would be a problem. But it also seems they're just making sure that kids get food if they for whatever reason don't have a lunch that day, which is helpful.
Of course, in practice, the difference isn't so obvious. It's hard because schools are put in a stopgap position to look after kids when the rest of our system hasn't done enough to look after their family. It's not an evil on the part of the schools, just a difference in the direction the problem is viewed.
I know that when I was in the position of running out of lunch money (before I was on free lunch), I'd honestly rather go through the rest of my day hungry than ask a friend for money or food. It was too defeating and embarrassing for me, and many.
I agree they should ask other questions to see if someone should qualify. It does depend on where someone live but in a place that has average living costs, I'd think someone should be able to provide lunch for their kids on 37k or more. My dad used to make that and food couldn't have cost that much less ten years ago. A sandwich, a fruit, a drink and a couple snacks aren't so expensive.
I agree whole-heartedly with Miriam. I can't believe some of you think this is okay.
This is happening at the school where my mom is a principal, too. Her school doesn't technically have a "cheese sandwich" policy. If someone's parents haven't paid, the cafeteria workers are supposed to let it slide and notify an administrator ... and they're supposed to do it DISCRETELY.
Last month my mom was distraught because she walked into a lunch to have some contact with the kids (something she always complains she can't do enough because of her position) and witnessed a cafeteria worker handing a kid a cheese sandwich, in front of all his friends, with absolutely no compassion or regard for the child's shame or humiliation. It was terrible.The boy was in first grade.
This is ridiculous, and I'm really upset that so many of you are simply not getting the point ... and are bringing up completely extraneous points, like ... Afghanistan? Wtf?
Why does anyone think it's okay to PUNISH a child for either irresponsible parenting or worse, being poor? No. The answer is never yes.
Did the first grade child react with the mortifying degree of shame and humiliation you ascribe to him? If so, he did so because THAT'S HOW HE WAS TAUGHT TO REACT. My question is, why has he been taught to feel shame simply because his family has less money than other families. And worse yet, why is his school reinforcing the value that having less money is something to be ashamed of?
I apologize for the harshness of my words. I have tremendous admiration and respect for anyone who chooses education as a profession, and I have no doubt your mom has none but the kindest and most respectful of intentions. But I believe a better response to the situation you describe would be for your mom to support the boy in front of his friends and tell them all that the amount of money one has has no bearing on the dignity or respect that they deserve.
crshark, you're really expecting a level of intellectual sophistication that elementary-aged children do not have. i work in a public elementary, and guess what? telling a six year old to keep a stiff upper lip about all the unimaginably cruel shaming and ostracizing they experience because of their "poor kid" lunch because money doesn't matter isn't going to do sh*t about their shattered self-esteem.
as someone up thread pointed out, this sort of policy can have extremely deleterious effects on a child's growing (and vulnerable) psyche and can stay with them throughout their life. it's wrong.
I really don't think it's a big deal. I'm glad to hear that children aren't going hungry and are still being fed. When I forgot my lunch money, my elementary school used to give me a PBJ sandwich. Nothing else. No milk, no fruit, just a sandwich.
In fact, I see it as a good safety net policy to catch the kids who are stuck in the middle. Granted it's not perfect but like misskitty said, can you offer an alternative instead of pointing out the obvious?
And what about the kids who DO bring their own lunch to school and it's just a cheese sandwich... or a granola bar...should we blame the parents for SHAMING their children because we think COLD CHEESE sandwiches are indicative of poverty?
Exactly GraceMP- we're using children to prove a point and I find it appalling.
My grandmother told me that her school used to hand out glasses of milk to every child so that no one would feel signaled out. Maybe if they distributed the sandwiches to children who needed them as well as kids who had forgotten their money or food, no one would feel embarrassed.
I'm from Albuquerque and felt the same way as a lot of people until I heard the full story. Like many people stated already, this is not aimed at poor families. This year the school district was already out $143K from giving lunches to kids who's parents either didn't sign them up for the federal program or didn't pay their bill. The district has already recovered $91K in just a few weeks, which can now be used for much needed books and supplies. And to put it in perspective... I know if I didn't pay my electric bill because I either forgot to sign up for a free or reduced electricity program or just forgot to write the check they wouldn't send me a flashlight before they shut off my lights.
Wow. When I was in elementary school, I often didn't have lunch money. Other kids stole it from me and I was too young to complain. I went without lunch on a regular basis, because if you couldn't pay you didn't eat. At least that's what I was told. My teacher had me wait and do spelling exercises in the classroom during lunch.
So... yeah. I agree with Miriam about the shaming being inappropriate, but my first reaction was "a cheese sandwich would have been nice."
I hadn't considered that my experience might not be normal until now.
If you forget your lunch money, you get a perfectly good lunch anyway. The example of the girl in the article was a temporary case where she had to take the cold lunch while the free meal application was being processed....so at best it's a minor inconvenience.
At my high school, if you didn't have lunch money you got NO LUNCH. I would have been psyched for a cheese sandwich and some milk instead of, you know, nothing. Sometimes I didn't have money and guess what-- no one cared! Shaming? What?
And some of my friends brought bag lunches-- for some of them it was Lunchables and all other kinds of crap, and others it was a granola bar and a cup of applesauce. Am I supposed to think that the granola kids were being shamed?
It's not that cheese sandwiches in and of themselves are indicative of poverty- but if you see kids in your school eating a cheese sandwich day in and day out and you know the school policy, then you know who the kids with no money are. Kids aren't stupid, they figure this stuff out very quickly. At our school district, everyone has a card that they swipe with their lunch account on it, so no one knows who is on free lunch and who is paying. This policy waves the name of the kids around like a big flag. I am really surprised so many people are ok with this. As an alternative? I'm sure the school throws away a ton of food at the end of day, so how about we just don't freaking worry about the 5 or 6 kids that need a free lunch when the food is already there. They don't know how many kids are bringing/buying their lunch on any given day, so they have to be prepared to feed the whole school. Many kids will bring a lunch, so clearly not all the food is needed.
OK, but what does your school district do if swiping the card shows that the parents are supposed to pay for lunch, but haven't put money into the lunch account? This isn't about the kids who qualify for free lunch.
I agree that this isn't a perfect solution, but I honestly can't think of a better one.
No, I understand that this is not for free lunch students- I was addressing the people that said that it was equally embarrassing to be a free lunch student, but in my school district that's simply not the case because no one has to know. I actually did some research and it turns out my school has an even worse policy and I am not pleased at all to discover it. (My kids are actually not in school yet- my daughter will start Kindergarten in the fall)
But seriously are people really saying "I had a shitty childhood too"? Wow, that's awesome. My parents were horrible fucking parents who had a policy of hit first, find out what happened later. I survived, so would that make it ok for me to inflict the same on my kids? Not at all. I understand that this is not the same, but that's a really ridiculous rationale.
Yeah, but you're an adult ABQ. If I forget my lunch, well then I don't eat. It's my own fault. Hell, most days I don't eat lunch simply because I have no time. I'm also almost 30 years old and I can deal with it. If my 5 year old loses her lunch money, I expect that the school district who is supposed to be ensuring her health and safety is not going to make her go without a decent lunch.
But the article says "Albuquerque Public Schools students receive a cheese sandwich in lieu of a hot meal if they have exceeded a set number of meals charged to their account, ranging from two at high schools to 10 at elementary schools."
So, your child would have to lose her lunch money 10 times before she got a cheese sandwich lunch.
What's funny is that when I was a kid, my favorite thing to bring from home in my school lunches was cold cheese and fruit. Those chicken nuggets and corndogs are disgusting (and also unhealthy). True, I don't know if the cheese sandwiches in question are good ones or disgusting ones, but they probably aren't that much worse than the other cafeteria food.
Everyone one in this forum who is worth half a damn had to learn to deal with at least some form of minor or major adversity growing up.
In the grand scheme of things these kids getting this lunch is a pretty piddly tribulation.
Name five artists or authors whom you love. Of that five how many had to overcome adversity during childhood? Probably all of them.
Yeah it sucks that we're not living a utopian ideal here, but as someone who actually was on welfare until my late teens when I went from welfare to the Army (basically another kind of welfare) I can tell you that while having to use the blue meal ticket at school while other kids got the green one did suck a little; about 1/1000th as much as getting glasses in 5th grade sucked.
So maybe we shouldn't allow kids to get glasses anymore because some prick will poke fun at them?
I sincerely hope I die before people who want to coat the earth in Nerf and prevent any and all discomfort from happening to the mollycoddled children of future generations gain total control.
Yes, and my tribulations resulted in stunted growth and serious anxiety issues.
But since the only choice is between that or "coat[ing] the world in Nerf"... *eye roll*
1) The debate over the nutritional value of this meal is over. No stunted growth from this meal.
2) People have problems. I know people who had pretty incident-free childhoods who have grown up to whine about and be miserable about pretty much anything.
Shielding these kids from what I can tell you from experience is pretty minor in terms of the kind of crap nearly everyone experiences growing up for one reason or many is akin to preventing them from consuming colostrum at birth. If your desire is to completely shield kids from even minor unpleasantness then, yeah you might as well coat the earth in Nerf. Why not encase them in bubble wrap to prevent them the horror of falling down, too?
Not only did I grow up on the dole, I've also worked in educating adult beginning college students. I've worked with kids who come from utter shit and kids with the proverbial silver spoon. Take a guess at which kids got the work done on time and properly more often.
My guess is that whatever has you still suffering and lamenting the horrors of your youth are a lot more serious than a cheese sandwich and piece of fruit at the same table as a hamburger and a slice of pie.
Ah yes, the classic: "Why does a free lunch matter when XYZ is so much more damaging?!?!"
Quit silencing the discussion with your dismissive comments.
"1) The debate over the nutritional value of this meal is over. No stunted growth from this meal."
Wow, really? It is? Why don't you try living off of just a cheese sandwich and some milk each day? Or that, plus a little bit of cereal in the morning and a quarter of a box of Hamburger Helper each night? Because that's what I lived off of when my family couldn't afford much of anything but still wasn't "on the dole" (as you so quaintly put it) and I can tell you that it was not nutritionally sound.
And you're not the only person in the fucking world who has had that experience so you CANNOT say that everyone would turn out like you. Just because you did okay does not mean that every child who is in that situation will. I turned out okay but I was lucky to have had a very middle class life from the age of 3 to the age of 10, so I already had higher standards and a lot of people to help me. But I'm willing to bet that many of my peers in that trailer park are still living with the shitty effects of poverty since they didn't have those things, while I was lucky enough to get out.
You have brought up precisely the problem with the The Bootstrap school of thought.
Those who tell us that "I pulled myself up by my [torn and inadequate] bootstraps, so others can, too!" exhibit not just astonishing lack of empathy but a refusal to examine the ways in which their own privilege helped them along in the world.
This is a school of thought that fetishizes the individual, individualism, and the idea of personal merit as the path to success. Ironically, in its quickness to focus on the individual's abilities and merits, the Bootstrap School (a la Bill O'Reilly) entirely skims past the varying problems facing individuals.
For example, the significant amount of students (a large number of which are of West African and Native ancestry) who are both poor and lactose intolerant means some kids within this system will have NO meal on any given day. Ditto the kids who are poor and simply can't "get over" their shame and anxiety enough to eat "the poor people's lunch" in front of their peers.
What advice does the Bootstrap school have for these children?
"I made it through it; you can too."
The lactose intolerance problem happens with the regular school lunches, too. The school lunch program is run by the Department of Agriculture, and the real drive behind it in the first place wasn't to feed poor kids, but to help farmers. Farmers overproduce a lot of stuff, and then that increase in supply leads to low food prices, which leads to farmers suffering. So, rather than flood the market with all that food, the USDA buys the surplus food from the farmers, thus keeping the supply that reaches the market lower, and the prices higher. The USDA then has to do something with all that food that they just bought, so they give it to the school lunch program.
The school lunch program being federally subsidized doesn't just mean that the federal government gives the schools money to buy the food. The USDA gives them this specific food, and the schools then have to serve it. So milk, by regulation, must be included in each lunch. The other commodity foods that show up a lot in school lunch programs are ground beef, cheese, and canned vegetables. (Lots of schools have tried to put things like fresh vegetables into school lunches, and they've found that they really can't -- so much of the federal support comes from the commodity foods, rather than from money, that there's really no way to work fresh vegetables into the budget, even if they actually cost the same amount as canned or frozen.)
When this was implemented in the forties, most farms were family farms, and it was a way of supporting them. Nowadays, when the vast majority of food is coming from huge factory farms, this whole system ends up seeming a bit silly -- we're artificially raising food prices, and then giving food to poor kids.
(Another place where the surplus food goes is international aid. When the US gives aid to foreign countries, certain amounts of that is food aid, which is in many ways another, "Crap! We've got too much food! What should we do with it?" program. So we give the extra food to developing countries. But what frequently ends up happening is that the American aid food, because it was just given to the countries, ends up cheaper than the locally-produced food, so that, say, people in some countries in Africa will find it cheaper to buy the American milk than the milk from the local dairy farmer, so that our food aid just put a put an African dairy farmer out of business, creating one more person who doesn't have income and needs aid, and perpetuating the cycle.)
This is genuinely interesting information, and I thank you for it.
However, I think you will agree that lactose intolerance is not the point of my comment; indeed, the issue is incidental to my point. Lactose intolerance is only one of hundreds of other situations in which a child cannot benefit from ( or cannot bring him/herself to benefit from) the "poor people's lunch" offering.
Even if we magically took lactose intolerance off the table, the Bootstrap school still glosses over numerous situations in which one size does not really fit all.
1. Thomas Hardy - quite good childhood.
2. Gene Kelly - got in fights over his dancing, then quit because of it, but that's about the worst of it.
3. David Bowie - thought his town was boring.
4. Katherine Hepburn - a childhood of incredible privilege.
5. Jarvis Cocker - supportive artist mother, baby sat by Joe Cocker.
Bonus:
6. Peggy Seeger - Kick ASS childhood.
Rainer Maria Rilke (according to the blurb on my edition) "had a perfectly normal middle class upbringing, except that his mother pretended he was a girl until he was aged five."
Which sounds about 50-50 adversity wise.
All of you people finding this okay should be ashamed of yourselves.
It doesn't matter what they're feeding them, they've set up a punishment meal for kids who have done nothing wrong. Not only are they singling them out for not being able to pay, they are also explicitly judging their parents for being irresponsible.
Do you not remember being in school? Kids will be cruel to anyone, about anything. But this school is basically directing and sanctioning their cruelty.
Yeah, this isn't a good situation, but this school is picking the worst possible solution by making the kids suffer for the "sins" of the parent.
It *should* be a comment on parental responsibility. If you look at follow-ups to this, Albuquerque has recovered significant money now from parents who've paid their bills. As a parent, it is *my* responsibility to provide for my children. If I cannot do that, then I need to look to programs in place for help. If I don't, or if I just don't pay for something my kids need, then I am the one at fault.
I found out recently that in some school districts in our area, the school's resource officer actually coordinates single-serving meals for kids to take home over the weekend. Otherwise they won't eat. That's shameful. Those parents should be ashamed of that. In a lot of these homes, according to the resource officer, the parents just don't feed their kids. It's not that they can't, they won't. Or they refuse to go to the churches or food pantries in the area.
I was so pumped to hear Obama address parental responsibility in his speech, and it's something I wish more people would take seriously. We cannot rely on school districts to raise our children, and I don't think it's wrong for the school to address a parental lag.
"the parents just don't feed their kids. It's not that they can't, they won't. Or they refuse to go to the churches or food pantries in the area."
Yeah, Brandi.... I would love you to cite some sources on this BS.
It's not that I can't pay the bill, it's that I won't.
You know, it's so much fun to see my son in tears when he comes home starving and hurt because some kid pushed him down in a puddle because he's the "poor kid"....
To a hungry kid, a cheese sandwich is better than nothing. When I was in school, we had pre-packaged pb&j bars for kids without lunch...if you asked for it. When I forgot money, I mooched food/money off my friends or I didn't eat.
I think instead of looking at a cheese sandwich as a social construction of shame, we should think of it as the best that a cash-strapped school district can do. There are much larger issues involved here (school funding, poverty), for us to be taking about what the sandwich represents.
Also, I had a shitty time in school--kids are mean, all of them--but it does make you a stronger person in the end.
the school district we are in has a low enough income that all children get free breakfast (school starts at 7:50am) and lunch provided by the state, regardless of a family's individual income.
No one has mentioned lactose intolerance yet?
Albuquerque's got a high population of people who are more predisposed towards lactose intolerance, including African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanics. In a recent census ('06, I believe), all of these demographics had household incomes below the median. It's not even that the kids are being shamed by being given cold cheese sandwiches; odds are that some of them can't even eat them anyway.
Poor Kid Lunch (as it was charmingly referred to when I was in elementary school) was something I ate when my family was in dire straits, but I was able to digest what I got. Were jelly sandwiches too big of a financial leap?
You run into the same lactose intolerance problem with the regular school lunches. By the USDA regulations, a school lunch MUST include milk (it's where the USDA puts the surplus milk that they buy from dairy farmers who produce more than the market can absorb), and the "commodity food" that the USDA provides to schools in exchange for serving lunch is frequently cheese and more milk. (The rest of the time it's either canned vegetables or ground beef, usually -- the school lunch program is one of the big recipients of agricultural surplus.)
This article says PB&J is no longer an otion for some because the children like PB&J too much: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/18/local/me-cheese18
Excerpt:
"Orange County’s Capistrano Unified School District serves crackers with peanut butter or cheese. The Los Angeles Unified School District gives children half a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches are a common alternate meal, but not a very effective one.
“It seemed to be one of the children’s very favorite meals, so that wasn’t productive,” said Beth Taylor, nutrition director for the Johnston County School District in North Carolina, where such sandwiches were tried. Taylor said switching to vegetable and fruit trays changed everything. Among last week’s menu items for students with lunch balances: crunchy cole slaw, fried squash and steamed cabbage. “The outstanding debt has been reduced to nothing,” she said."
Thanks for that link - maybe the people who are trying so hard to pretend that it's not about punishing the kids will see that and realize that yeah, it pretty much is.
I'm assuming they have an alternative for kids who are lactose intolerant or allergic to something. Schools pretty much always have to.
If they are handing a cheese sandwich to a child who they know can't eat it, then yes, that is a bad policy. But I assume they can give an equivalent sandwich to that kid with something slightly different in it, and give them juice instead of milk.
I remember that I was allergic to milk, wheat, etc. as a kid. The one time I got a school lunch, we had carefully scheduled it to avoid the issues, and they switched everything. I threw up while trying to eat it.
The school admin decided I had behavioral problems.
I was gonna say ...
I can't drink milk or eat processed cheese. So I guess I would have gotten a piece of squishy school fruit and cold bread. Yummmmm that's a good lunch.
Somehow I highly doubt the school gives a crap. At my school I usually liked the school lunches. On cheeseburger day I would just ask for no cheese on the burger. Suddenly one day the lunch lady said that unless you had a NOTE FROM YOUR DOCTOR SAYING YOU WERE LACTOSE INTOLERANT, you could not refuse the slice of cheese on your burger. Shortly after, they started melting the cheese on so it was hard to get it off. (Juice was always an option in our lunches, so milk was no problem.)
I dunno about Albequerque, but I'm sure it's hard for kids who are already having issues due to lack of funds to come up with a note from a doctor stating why they can't eat cheese ...
"Taylor said switching to vegetable and fruit trays changed everything... “The outstanding debt has been reduced to nothing,” she said.""
That's actually rather funny. It wasn't the different lunch that made the parents pay the outstanding balances, it was the kids complaining about having to eat fruit and vegetables.
At my son's school you get two charges. You were not allowed to buy a la carte items (those can't be bought with the prepaid cards, they have to be paid for with cash) while there is a charge. Not being able to get a 25 cent cookie at the end of the meal is the best thing to get the kid to root through the packback and get the lunch bill to the parents. Not getting the bill seems to be the main reason the bill gets unpaid.
I wholeheartedly agree with the above poster about meaning being assigned to the sandwich. It's not just a sandwich to kids. When I subbed, I routinely saw elementary kids who could not handle getting the "I forgot my money" lunch. The kids saw it as punishment ("I was forgetful so now I get a different, less delicious lunch"). The cashiers would normally give a speech to them with the sandwich ("Well, maybe next time you should remember your money" or "If you get your parents to pay, then you can get the hot lunch, too"), reinforcing their belief that they got the different lunch because they did something bad or wrong. Whenever I had cafeteria duty there was always at least one kid who cried the whole way through lunch and couldn't be comforted. In an emotionally disturbed class I subbed in, the one time a kid had to get the sandwich lunch he started sobbing and hitting himself, calling himself obscenities because he'd been "stupid" and left his money at home.
It wasn't about kids being stigmatized for being poor. When a kid gets treated differently, that child normally comes to the conclusion that she did something bad. In this case, I don't feel the "punishment" fits the "crime." Being singled out in front of your peers and lectured briskly by a pissed cafeteria worker is a bit much for a five year old who left her dollar on the counter.
I don't have a budget-friendly solution, but I just wanted to point out that this isn't necessarily kids not being able to handle poverty, it's kids thinking it's punishment.
The problem for me here is that I know a ton about education. So, when this blog ends up posting something about education, which I am very glad to see, then everything to me is crystal clear. I get the impression that a lot of the posters here are the most amateurish, lame-ass excuses for feminists and pro-feminists that I ever see. They like to seethe with outrage over PETA or other really obvious, tired, low-brow issues. When I observe something like this, people not extending their so-called feminist ethics to include children, animals, and other issues just a bit outside the old set of women's studies issues we all heard about in college, then I lose my mind. I just can't believe that people sympathize with this policy. Really amateur, really.
I think it's extremely unfair to characterize all of the people who have a different take on this issue as being "the most amateurish, lame-ass excuses for feminists and pro-feminists that I ever see." I promise that every single person in this thread of comments would love to see all children well fed and never ridiculed for the things they don't have. I just think the criticism should be leveled at those in charge of state and federal budgeting. Ideally, I would like to see all children offered free meals as part of school attendance. (Hell, I'd like to see education be a higher priority, period.) Instead we are targeting a school system going beyond it's obligations, trying to do what it can with extremely limited funds. Schools shouldn't have to pick up the slack for all of the ways the system and parents (whether intentionally or a product of unfortunate circumstances) have failed them. I think all of us have a great deal of sympathy for children who will be faced with the stigma of being "the poor kid", but sometimes situations that are less than ideal are necessary in the real world.
So you can take that as me being an amateur, faux-feminist or whatever label you prefer. But the way I see it, the issues that surround this whole lunch debate go far, far beyond cheese sandwiches. I'd just rather we put the attention where it's due... Children that aren't being provided for and stigmas attached to poverty.
Frankly, I am shocked that so many commenters have a problem with the policy.
Who has designated the cheese sandwich a "punishment meal?" YOU HAVE. YOU have projected inferiority onto these perfectly sufficient lunches, not the schools.
The lunch ladies don't paddle kids on the ass as they exit the lunch line or mock them for being poor, so I don't understand how anyone perceives that "shaming" is happening.
I'm sure some kids make fun of the cheese sandwich kids, but they probably make fun of the kids with gluten allergies and kids whose moms won't let their kids have sugar.
Lets just have the schools perform Kitchen Checks in every kids' home so their parents don't accidently give them inferior lunches to bring to school.
Many public schools cannot afford BOOKS. They are having PAPER DRIVES because they have no money. Now they have to give every kid a gourmet lunch whether or not they have the funds. Our whole education system needs to be rehauled but we're not going to get anywhere chastizing the individual schools for doing the best they can with what they have.
In schools I was in, the lunch ladies would lecture kids who forgot their money and got the sandwich lunch. When you were a child, did you have to get hit to feel shamed, or was a sharp word from an authority figure enough?
Kids feel punished pretty easily. I never designated the sandwich as punishment, I never projected inferiority onto them. The kids did because they got a lesser meal as a result of an infraction. Why is it so strange that they parse that as "punishment"?
So the schools can reprimant employees who shame or humiliate kids.
That kids perceive cheese sandwiches as punishment does not mean it's actually punishment. It's what happens when kids don't bring a meal or money with which to buy a meal. They are still getting a meal for chrissakes! It is punishment to make schoolchildren sit in hard chairs as opposed to recliners? Aye.
C'mon Sarah. No one is advocating that this policy should be dismantled and kids with an outstanding balance receive no lunch. I can tell that it's been awhile since you've seen an elementary school cafeteria, because the poor kid lunch is far from sufficient. Hell, the paid lunch is insufficient.
Whatever, I know the "nutritional value" argument has been discarded, but let's get real. Kids live in a world of social construction, just like you and I. Telling a six year old it doesn't matter that she'll get ostracized and shamed for her lunch is not helpful.
No, but it is punishment to say "You forgot your book? You sit in the hard chair today. Tomorrow, if you remember it, you can sit in the recliners like the rest of the class." I'm not saying children should be given nothing but puppies and fireworks and their own personal unicorn, I was saying that the children are viewing it as punishment because it conforms to the definition of punishment, not because of social constructs of poverty.
Like I said above, I don't have a budget-friendly solution. I know full well that school districts don't have a lot of cash to be thrown around. The answer is probably in figuring out how to frame the sandwich as a neutral consequence as opposed to a punishment.
Race is a social construction. Most social and biological anthropologists agree on this. We advocate instead for the use of "ethnicity" because there is no instrinsic connection between say, a Yoruba from West Africa and a Kikuyu from Kenya.
Yet, racism is real. And race is real in the minds of those who subscribe to it (i.e. the majority of the U.S.).
To argue that "race is a social construction, thus minorities should just get hip to this fact and stop feeling stigmatized for their imaginary race," is absurd, offensive, and couched in unacknowledged privilege.
Yes, we should work on de-stigmatizing both the cheese sandwich school lunch and poverty in general.
But until that far-away day, children will continue to suffer from the stigmas already in place.
We really need to drop the whole cheese sandwich bit because it is starting to sound bizarre. And damn it, every individual school and every individual teacher needs to be chastised. Every individual stakeholder within the education institution needs a paddling. I am heavily involved in education reform at various levels and the lack of will to change the status quo is startling. Teaching is an intellectual profession and they should no longer be treated with kid gloves. When a school or district implements a ridiculous policy out of expedience, they should hear in no uncertain terms from everyone why it is ineffective, pointless, or whatever.
And to bring up the whole cheese sandwich thing, which is now actually kind of funny, what the freaking hell are any of the people in this forum eating that they think cheese on white bread, or even bologna, is sufficient and oh so tasty? What the hell is going on here? Madness.
"And to bring up the whole cheese sandwich thing, which is now actually kind of funny, what the freaking hell are any of the people in this forum eating that they think cheese on white bread, or even bologna, is sufficient and oh so tasty? What the hell is going on here?"
I'm a grad student. Cheese sandwich is fairly typical lunch for me. It was also a fairly typical lunch for me in high school. It's not the greatest meal in the world, but a sandwich and a piece of fruit and maybe a granola bar or something is definitely enough for lunch for me.
But your typical lunch is a cheese sandwich, some fruit, and maybe a granola bar or something. That's not the same thing as a cheese sandwich.
I then promptly recalled that the lunch in question included fruit, so ignore my previous comment! Sigh. Preview before submit...
If the heart of this matter is that "kids suffer because of their parents' financial situations," then there are ALOT bigger fish to fry than the freaking cheese sandwich. And the path to "solving" that problem is a kind of political system that sends shivers down my spine.
Gin posted a link to this article on the same topic, though in a different school system:
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/18/local/me-cheese18
Read that article and tell me that the kids don't feel stigmatized. This article also makes it clear that the alternative lunches were a way to encourage parents to pay. Why shouldn't also that be the goal here?
Excerpt:
"The sandwiches’ low appeal is one thing. The stigma attached to them is worse, parents say.
One Chula Vista third-grader, whose mother requested that the girl not be identified, said students sometimes ostracize the cheese sandwich kids, switching tables and talking behind their backs. “Some kids say they’re not the kind of kids you want to hang out with,” she said.
Another girl said the cheese sandwich is “for people who don’t have money.”
Rosemarie Gonzalez said her daughter, a first-grader, was so troubled when she got the cheese sandwich that for three weeks she had to be reassured that her lunch account was current. Another panicky child broke into her piggy bank just in case her parents needed money."
I see previous posters' point about public school's not having enough money to do anything else.
We need to think bigger than the school. This says something about how our country prioritizes its budget, not to mention how we as a whole feel about those in poverty
Sounds like it's the other damned kids who are causing all the trouble: kids who were probably raised to look down on and ridicule less fortunate people. How about we paddle THEIR parents rather than taking it out on the school?
Well I agree with you that it is the other kids who are doing the shaming and it is their parents fault, at least partially. HENCE why I included the bit about it reflecting how society as a whole views the impoverished.
Obviously there wouldn't be any shaming if low income families weren't seen as less than human.
Like I said, this is bigger than the school.
I honestly didn't understand where the idea of "shaming" came in until I read the second article that Gin posted. Now that I see it, however, I have to point out the fact that, according to the second article, it worked. This makes it seem like, at least in that case, the problem is not necessarily any sort of economic hardship but rather simple oversight on the part of the parents.
Let's look at another example of school policy which has similar effects. For instance, say your parents did not sign your permission slip for your field trip. You are not allowed to go on the trip, correct? Should the school be blamed for parental oversight and shaming the child who cannot go on the trip, despite efforts to garner parental permission? All sorts of legal problems would ensue.
Granted, punishment in this case is not the intention, but at the heart of it, neither is it the intention of schools who simply wish to be paid for the food they serve. Honestly, if this were an article on poor-quality textbooks, this discussion wouldn't happen simply because children have no desire (instilled in them by commercials and such) for a textbook like they do for a slice of greasy pizza.
“Some kids say they’re not the kind of kids you want to hang out with,” she said.
My goodness, I'd tell my kids that any kid who would say that is not the kind of kid you want to hang out with.
I tend to think it goes beyond shaming, as the low-income children probably need something more healthy than a cheese sandwich.
It isn't uncommon for the children to rely on school for food. If you have nutritious dinners every night, it's easy to get away with the cheese sandwich lunch.
Shaming is very bad, but you gotta feed these kids real food.
It's not just a cheese sandwich. It's a cheese sandwich , fruit & a carton of milk. That's a perfectly reasonable, nutritious lunch, on par with what my parents packed for me to bring from home. There seem to be a lot of people disparaging the content of this meal (aside from the possible social status issues), but I don't understand what more they're picturing when they think of a nutritious lunch. Frankly I think its wonderful that the school is providing a full meal even to kids whose families haven't paid.
While it may have been a fine lunch for you, the same is not necessarily true to the child for whom those two slices of white bread, slice of cheese, apple, and carton of milk serve as the MAIN meal of the day, let alone their ONLY meal.
For everyone commenting saying that the a lesser value has been "imposed" upon the cheese-sandwhich lunch, societal value isn't the only issue at stake. Caloric and nutritional value also come into play. While the cheese-sandwhich lunch may adhere to state guidelines in regards to serving portions of fruit, carbs, dairy, etc., I sincerely doubt that day in and day out it can hold a candle to the nourishment value of the hot lunch provided at full or reduced price.
What then is the impact of this meal on the rest of the school day? You need fuel to function. While once in a while is likely to do no greater harm, how does the consumption of this lesser meal on a long-term basis affect the academic performance of a child? In theory the public education system is supposed to provide the same basic quality of education to all who enroll, regardless of their economic status. Kids whose parents are in debt to the school aren't forced to use older, out of date editions of textbooks or sit at the back of the class where they can't hear the lesson as well as the kids in the front. Sure, they'd potentially still be able to do their work, but they would be far less likely to perform at the same level as others in their class because the school sytem had imposed an academic handicap in response to their parents' economic issues, whatever they may be. Why is it okay to do in the lunchroom what we would never tolerate in the classroom?
The federal guidelines also include calorie counts. My question is, what's the alternative? If the parent can't afford to feed the kid, but they don't qualify for free or reduced price lunch, then where should the money for the kid's lunch come from? School lunches are a federally subsidized program, and not just for the free ones -- the schools are given money and commodity food based on how many lunches they serve, and a lunch that isn't paid for and isn't an official free lunch doesn't count as a lunch "served," so the school is losing money both from what the student would have paid and from what the USDA would have paid.
While the implementation of this program could have been a lot better, it's still giving free lunch to kids who otherwise wouldn't have lunch.
It certainly seems to be the only practical option available at the moment, but that doesn't make it necessarily the best of policies or even a good policy that should be let to continue unquestioned, as many commenters seem to be implying.
In short there's no simple answer because you can't have the kids go without food completely and the schools are honestly sufferent from budget strains. This is a symptom of a much greater problem of an improperly funded school system (insert debate about whether this is because of underfunding or missapplication of current funding) and the beaurocratic definitions of poverty and the process needed to gain aid so yeah, kind of a big deal and something that should be discussed and fought for economically/politically/socially.
Yes, the school lunch program, in addition to pretty much all school funding and food aid funding, really does need to be overhauled. My frustration is much more with the system that made this the only reasonable option than with the school that had to make that choice.
Obviously a single (normal sized) meal a day is not enough to sustain anyone. I guess I'm a little at a loss in this scenario because I don't know what constitutes a school supplied "hot lunch". My elementary school didn't have a cafeteria at all - you brought food from home or you went without.
It does strike me though that if its falling to elementary schools to provide the majority (or all) of the food a child is getting on a long term daily basis there is something seriously wrong elsewhere in the system.
A "hot lunch" is a main dish (a square of pizza, or a small hamburger, or a few chicken nuggets or fish sticks), two sides (generally a spoonful each of canned corn and canned green beans, or maybe french fries or instant mashed potatoes instead of one of the vegetables), and a half-pint carton of milk.
We also got a roll or side of rice and a small desert (jello, pudding, carmel apple slices, a cookie, that kind of thing), and you could swap out a veggie for peach slices or another fruit, but yeah, that's about the gist of it.
rhowan, google image search "school lunch tray" and it'll give you an idea of what the portions and layout tend to look like, though I'm sure there are also federal guidelines defining what is and isn't a "hot lunch".
Really? The "hot lunches" I see on google do not look very appetizing. I'd rather have a bagel and fruit. I can't believe things like pepperoni pizzas, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets form the main part of meals provided by the school.
Well, cafeteria food isn't really the most appealling to look at wherever you go, but it isn't all pizza and burgers. Spaghetti, red beans and rice, chicken fingers, baked potatoes, tacos, and so on were common entree items when I was growing up.
I almost started crying reading some of the comments on here.
Anyone who says "just apply for free lunch" is coming from a place of priveledge. It is based strictly off income and family size and in most states decisions can't be appealed. It doesn't take into consideration that maybe mom/dad doesn't get health insurance at works but makes too much for the state programs so pays for it out of pocket, making their 'actual' income much lower. It doesn't take into consideration nearly any circumstances that might make someone with a seemingly 'average' income struggle more than those with lower income who get the benefits (free lunch, food stamps, section 8, etc).
Anyone who says a cheese sandwhich and milk is a decent lunch for a child who has 2 recesses plus gym everyday is out of their mind. It doesn't matter what grade someone is in, hunger = lower grades. You can't concentrate when you are hungry.
Anyone who argues that the 'shaming' is just a social issue and that kids/adults just need to be taught not to stigmatize it is sorely missing the point. The point is that it IS stigmatized and unless you are going to wave a magic wand and 'poof!' make everyone start thinking and acting differently, your point is moot.
And yes, sometimes parents do honestly forget to pay ahead or give their child lunch money that day... but there are just as many if not more parents who tell their children and others they forgot because they are too embarrassed to admit they need help.
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As a side note, I ended up with plenty of the nasty processed cheese sandwhiches and milk. Problem was all I could really do was pick at the bread because I am allergic to cows milk (I am fine with lactose). I didn't know I had the allergy then, but I knew hunger felt better than how sick the milk/cheese made me feel. Most of the times I wouldn't even bother and just skip out to the playground so the other kids wouldn't notice me not eating.
My standard lunch in elementary school (and this was seriously what I had every day -- I wasn't a very adventurous eater and my mother wasn't terribly creative with lunch-making) was a sandwich, a piece of fruit, two cookies, and a juice box. And I didn't always finish it. (The lunch ladies made us take home any food we didn't eat -- no food in the garbage. My mother hated that policy -- I'd come home with a quarter of a tuna sandwich and half an apple in my lunchbox, which she'd just throw out at home.) And I was certainly not a malnourished child.
I take it you had breakfast beforehand and then dinner at night, possibly even an afternoon snack?
You can't pretend that this lunch happens in a nutritional vacuum.
No, of course it didn't. But I'm also fairly certain that a family that not only can't afford lunch but also can't afford breakfast or dinner would qualify for free lunch, and thus this wouldn't apply to them.
And yes, there are kids who qualify for free lunch who don't get it because they're embarrassed. That's an issue that the school should do something about -- find a way to serve the lunches so that it isn't obvious to the kids who's paying and who isn't. And it would be great if the school could give hot lunches to all kids for free, but they can't -- there simply isn't money for it, especially in poorer districts. The money for that food has to come from somewhere, and if the parents aren't paying for it and the government isn't paying for it, then nobody's paying for it.
And also, when the parents are paying for it, the government is paying for it too. The school gets a certain amount of food and money from the USDA for each lunch served. A lunch that's not paid for and not officially free doesn't count as a lunch "served." The districts are strapped for cash, just like the parents are.
The teachers should certainly address kids who are making fun of other kids for having the cheese sandwich -- make it clear that that's not acceptable. As far as I can see, the point of the cheese sandwich isn't the shame the kids -- the point is to give them something to eat as a stopgap until their parents either pay or enroll them in free lunch.
Upthread there are several comments talking about the numerous cracks in the current system that families are falling through.
Plus, it isn't just a matter of whether you can afford to feed your family, it's what you can afford to feed your family. Given the greater context, your remark about malnutrition read as dismissive of the very real concerns many families face in these situations.
The bottom line is that the kids need to be fed, which at least they are with this program, greater social effects of the "poor kid lunch" aside. But to look at policies like these and think "Wow, how great that free lunches are being given to these kids in these circumstances! I rather enjoy a cheese sandwich myself, so this sounds lovely!" like some seem to be doing is missing the point. We should be horrified at the systemic forces that have converged to create their necessity and be moved to work towards their erradication.
I didn't mean to be dismissive with the remark about malnutrition. I guess I didn't totally think through how that could be read.
And as I said up thread, I am much more frustrated at the system that makes this the only practical option than I am with the schools that have to choose this option. And if the other kids are making fun of kids who are getting the cheese sandwiches, then something is very wrong with the say that the school is explaining it to the kids.
Thank you, Taisa Marie.
Oh, no doubt I'm sure it is a filling and reasonably nutritious lunch (as a fill-in meal between a healthy breakfast and a healthy dinner, assuming the child is going to get either of those). Sure, it's edible.
And ketchup really is a vegetable. After all, it's not animal or mineral, right?
And the drinking fountain on the right gives perfectly drinkable water.
Some of the posters in this thread should read this article. YES, kids sometimes DO choose to go hungry rather than face what they regard as the humiliation of eating the "federal lunch". And the fact is that they DO find it embarrassing and humiliating, and the magical incantation of "Well they should just stop feeling that way!" simply DOES NOT WORK.
A friend of mine told me about this policy at a school her mother works at in Norwalk, CT.
She said that it's kind of a stop-gap until the family files the free lunch form, or if the account has been out for a long while. I really don't agree with it at all. Her mother, at least, offers to help the parents fill out the form, and helps them... cut corners, shall we say, in order to make sure it's approved.
This is so sad. I remember how negative status hierarchys could be during middle and high school.
I think that this could be more negative to the kids, because the parents may not care, or cant help it....theyre broke. I think the staff need to figure out a more economical method of serving food, or making the types of food served more egalitarian.
So, I've come back hours later, there are 119 comments, and I still don't see one single suggestion of where the school should get the money to just keep giving out free lunches all the time.
Also, as several people have posted, this policy has caused lots of parents to immediately pay off the bills-- showing that its not that they COULDN'T pay it, but that they just had forgotten or something. The policy works, and now the schools can buy books and paper and chalk.
Thank you on this.
I am a grad student.
For what my salary is, by the end of a month, sometimes *I* can't afford to even have so much as a cheese sandwich for an entire day's meal.
And yet, taxes are still being taken from my paycheck to pay for these things for OTHER people.
How is this fair.
I can't afford it for MYSELF,
and these people have the NERVE to complain that it isn't good enough when the money is being taken out of MY pocket for it.
One more thing-- several people have said it isn't the nutrition that's the issue, but that kids will be teased.
Well, kids will tease each other about ANYTHING. When I was a kid I got teased about having glasses. Should the school have bought me contacts? If a kid gets teased because their mom packs a home lunch of, say, vegan food from a health food store, should the school tell them to throw it out and take a free hot lunch instead? If a kid has a hand-me-down coat, should the school take them to the mall and buy them a brand new one so they don't seem poor?
I think kids need to eat, and you can't expect a little kid to do schoolwork when they're hungry. But beyond that, it isn't the school's job to pay to equalize every tiny feature of the kids home lives. Doing so teaches the kids that its right to be ashamed of being different.
To me, the lunches sound decent and nutritious, and its a good thing that they're providing nutritious lunches so that kids won't have to try to do work while hungry. (I assume they have an alternative for kids who are lactose intolerant or allergic to something; schools pretty much always have to.)
Are hot meals a common thing in grade school? If they had the parents who can afford it, make their kids' lunches, then the "poor kids" lunch would look pretty similar to the other kids' lunch. I don't know how much the regular meals cost but even if I had the money to pay, I'd want to make my kids' lunch if that were cheaper.
Even though it sounds healthy, the cheese sandwiches likely don't taste very good. If they made the sandwiches with some good European cheese, it'd be good. Actually I'd never heard of cheese sandwiches till I went to Europe.
As an aside, I notice on American TV shows no one ever brings a lunch to school. Is this realistic?
Well, at my (American) elementary school, there was a cafeteria and they served corn dogs and chicken nuggets or something along those lines. I was a fairly picky eater and I always hated meat, so to me they seemed super disgusting, but I think most of the other kids thought the corn dogs were gross too. As I remember, the majority of kids brought their lunch from home, so it was always cold. Then we had a little table where everyone put food they didn't want and other people could take it (I don't remember if that was school sanctioned or just us trading lunches). I don't know for sure what happened if a kid was planning to buy lunch and forgot their money-- I think I remember our teacher lending lunch money a few times, which meant that if they didn't pay her back it came out of her pocket, and its not like teachers get paid a lot.
In middle school I was at a much bigger school with a more elaborate cafeteria that served burgers, fries, pizza, etc, but I still always brought my own lunch, as did lots of other kids. My parents didn't think the school lunches were healthy. There was also a separate little store with candy and treats, to make money for the school, and I remember buying popcorn with my own quarters.
So no, I don't think its realistic if they never bring lunch to school on TV (I hadn't noticed that), but maybe it varies in different places.
"As an aside, I notice on American TV shows no one ever brings a lunch to school. Is this realistic?"
When I was in elementary school, almost everybody brought a lunch to school. Our school had no cafeteria. Each day, we had a choice of either going home for lunch or staying for lunch. (Most of us had at least one stay-at-home parent. In first and second grade, the chance to see Mommy in the middle of the day made going home for lunch a good choice most days. By third or fourth grade, hanging out with friends made staying for lunch a good choice. In fifth and sixth grades, we'd sometimes ride our bikes to the local pizzeria -- that wasn't an option in earlier grades, since the pizzeria was far enough away that we needed bikes to get there and back on time, and we weren't allowed to ride bikes to school before fifth grade.)
For kids who stayed for lunch, we ate at our desks in the classroom, and almost everybody brought a lunch from home. There was an option to buy lunch, but you had to bring in the form and the money at the beginning of the week, and then at lunchtime, someone would deliver a sandwich, an apple, and milk to the kids who'd ordered it. It wasn't a very popular option -- usually no more than one or two kids out of a class of 25 or so would get it. And there was a bit of a stigma attached to that -- a sort of "your mommy doesn't care enough to make you lunch" sort of thing. My mother was in the hospital a few times when I was in elementary school, and she suggested that I get the bought lunch during those times, and I absolutely refused. So my dad made my lunch before he left for work in the mornings -- when he made it, it was always a PB&J, an apple, fruit punch, and chocolate chip cookies. (There was one time during those days when my mom was in the hospital that I accidentally left my lunchbox in my dad's car when he dropped me off at school. I ended up having to get bits and pieces of other kids' lunches. My dad, who grew up with the "NEVER waste food" mentality, didn't want the lunch to go to waste, so he ate the sandwich and fruit punch and cookies, out of my Pound Puppies lunchbox, for his lunch at work that day.)
On TV no-one seems to bring lunches simply because getting in line for the hot lunch and commenting on the food is a convenient story-telling device. It allows the characters to "walk and talk" and almost always involves some small joke at the expense of the food or the people serving it.
It's a film convention, not a convention of the greater society.