I have a question about school lunches in other districts.

[sandrakae]

I live in Middletown Area School District. It had come to my attention that children in that school district are denied their lunch, if their parents are behind in the lunch bill. There has been situations of children actually having the tray taken away and the food being thrown out. I actually wrote the superintendent of schools. She passed my email onto the the gentleman who is in charge of the lunch program. He did not deny this. He gave explanations. Basically blaming the parents. Though I understand some of his point, it doesn't take away the fact that a child in this School District went hungry. It bothers me very much that our tax dollars go to other countries and not here taking care of our own. I suggested a fund raiser to keep money aside for things like this. He did not respond to that suggestion. What I would like to do is write him back with a list of ideas that other school district do to handle this problem. I spoke to my sister who's children are in high school now at Northern, in Dillsburg. She was part of the PTO when they were younger and said they never did this to children, if they had to they made PBJ sandwiches for them. Please let me know how your district handles this.

[Bunny]

1. Well, I don't know what our district's official policy is, but my daughter

says that in her 2.5 years at the public school, she has never seen a kid denied food. She says that if you're more than a couple of weeks late, they'll make you take an application for reduced/free lunch, but she's never seen them outright take food away from anyone.

I don't care how big a jackass a kid's parents are, there is NO excuse, NONE, for a kid going hungry in school. We have so much food and so much money in this country that no kids should ever go hungry. This is one of my beefs with our society in general, to tell the truth.

[bleedingheart]

2. The Norwin School district policy is as follows

notices are sent home when the account for the child is running out (our kids all have school id cards that they swipe in the cafeteria).. They send about two notices home before the kids are fed cheese sandwiches and this is actually good because one of my kids actually kept forgetting the notice that I owed money for the lunch program. So...the first day my kid got served a cheese sandwich...he came home and handed me the notice and the next day went in with a check for two months worth of lunch.

Now, the kids who qualify for free lunch have to have their parents fill out the paperwork and they get both free breakfast and free lunch.

I have never heard of a child being denied any food at all...that is barbaric.

What I love about the intermediate school in our area is that there is an optional snack account. For kids like my son, who needs to eat constantly...this is great but i heard from the principal that parents can put conditions on it.

[fortyfeetunder]

3. Haven't seen it in my neck of the woods

The kids get reminders, but I have never seen a kiddo denied lunch because the parents were behind. It's not the kid's fault. And sometimes the parents might have fallen into hard times and they can't provide lunch money. The school district should be aware of it and help those families....

And yes, I think a provisional fund should be made available for paying for meals.

[dropkickpa]

4. That doesn't happen at the PGH pub sch. dist

As my daughter can attest :eyes: She sometimes decides that she wants school lunch rather than what I packed her, and she just waltzes into line and gets lunch, even without her lunch money. Little brat. I'm always sending apology notes and what I owe for it (she gets reduced lunch price, but I pack her lunch 3-4 days a week).

I am appalled that the lunch program director would attempt to defend these actions. Asshole. Does he not realize that for MANY children in this country, school lunch is the only reliable meal they get everyday? And that the kids whose parents are behind are the same kids who are probably in most need of at least 1 reliable meal a day?