Many charter schools not providing meals - Needy kids must bring own lunch or order fast food (LAT)

[somone]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0101-charter-food-20110101,0,4567878.story

Charter choices: good food, free food, no food
Some campuses say they lack the means to provide nutritious meals — or any meals.
By Mary MacVean and Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times

At Larchmont Charter School in Los Angeles, a former restaurant chef whips up pasta with fresh vegetable sauce for lunch one day; on another he offers a salad bar with figs grown on campus. But 500 miles north, in tiny Red Bluff, lunchtime at Sacramento River Discovery Charter School is decidedly different: Students must either bring their own lunches or place orders with parent volunteers who make a daily run to Taco Bell, Burger King or Subway.

Cafeteria food at traditional public schools has long had a bad reputation, but at least children can count on a meal that's free for needy families.

Mealtime is more complicated at the more than 900 publicly financed charter schools in California. Unlike traditional campuses that must follow state nutrition regulations for schools, charters can make independent decisions about what's for lunch. Some charter school officials decide not to serve it at all, even if that might mean that the nutrition needs of some of the state's poorest children are not being met.

"Charter schools are about family choice," said Phyllis Bramson-Paul, director of nutrition services for the state Department of Education. "On the other hand, there is a lot of hunger in California, and we know children who are hungry don't learn as well."... Although charters — just like traditional public schools — can get a cash subsidy from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help provide meals to needy children, they are exempt from a state requirement to serve at least one nutritionally adequate subsidized meal a day to qualifying children... Lunchtime on some charter campuses "indulges the students' worst impulses and obligates the parents to pay for meals that USDA is willing to fund," said Matthew Sharp, a senior advocate at California Food Policy Advocates...

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Funding for the lunch program has been cut back this year

Lots of kids who have eaten free for years now have to pay.

It costs schools money to feed kids.

So this doesn't surprise me that charters are opting not to feed kids.

[jwirr]

2. So they are not only trying to destroy our public school systems but

along with it the hot lunch programs and free lunches for poor children. These people are unbelievable. Are they human?

[Cleita]

3. I'm beginning to think that they are V's,

reptilian aliens in human bodies.

[tinrobot]

4. Sociopathic.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Unless they could make a profit on it, why would they?

Most of the management companies have a bottom line to tend. I'm sure charter schools in more prosperous neighborhoods get lunch. Revolution Foods© is mentioned in the article:

Such services come at a premium, though. Although companies like Revolution Foods say they work hard to keep prices down, many charters find that the government reimbursement rate in California — up to $2.96 a meal for lunch and $1.98 for breakfast — doesn't cover the cost of hiring a caterer.

Yet they serve over 60,000 students, so someone is paying for their services. I love how the article calls the owners "moms". I'm sure they are, but their bios are hardly typical, lol.

"Kristin Groos Richmond, Founder and CEO, Prior to founding Revolution Foods, Kristin’s career spanned from education reform to corporate finance. She began her career on Wall Street as an investment banker at Citigroup. After her career in corporate finance, Kristin moved to Nairobi to co-found the Kenya Community Center for Learning (KCCL), one of the first special education schools in East Africa. Kristin led fundraising and development, operations and finance for KCCL and also taught physical education, geography and life skills. She remains an active board member of KCCL. Kristin also served as a Vice President at RISE, a nonprofit dedicated to recruiting and retaining quality teachers in public schools. While at RISE, Kristin helped schools serving low income students implement strategies to locate, attract and retain the best and brightest teachers. She also played a large role in expanding the organization from the San Francisco Bay Area to Chicago and Los Angeles. Kristin is an Aspen Institute Entrepreneurial Leaders In Public Education Fellow and an Education Pioneers Fellow. She is a board member of Lighthouse Community Charter School and has a BS from Boston College and an MBA from UC Berkeley where she serves on the Board of the Global Social Venture Competition.


Kirsten Saenz Tobey, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, began her career as a teacher and coordinator of experiential education programs at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts as well as with Amigos de las Americas in Ecuador. During college, she ran children’s garden education programs in California and Rhode Island, where she enjoyed helping children to connect with the source of their food. Her passion for sustainability and community health led her to run a public health campaign for Earthjustice. She managed a study abroad program for the School for Field Studies in Mexico where she worked with college students to study the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the fishing industry. During graduate school, she worked with the United Nations Hunger Task Force to evaluate the scalability of school feeding programs in Ghana and with the McDonald's Corporation to incorporate social and environmental responsibility into the supply chain. Kirsten has an AB from Brown University and an MBA from UC Berkeley."


From an article in 2009:

Revolution Foods, by contrast, provides meals that qualify for federal reimbursement to its schools, which are 90 percent public. Of these, about 75 percent are charter schools and 25 percent are in small districts, such as Mill Valley and Rosemond. The $3 that Revolution Foods charges per meal may sound low, but it is still proportionally far above the $2.59 the federal government reimburses schools for the free lunch program.
"In San Francisco, only about $0.90 of that $2.59 is spent on the actual food in each lunch. Those two bucks and change must pay for everything involved with getting that meal to a child: the food, the cooking, the lunchroom, the cafeteria worker(s), the disposal service.

"Revolution Foods™ schools make up the difference in a variety of ways. Charter schools are not subject to the same teacher union rules as other public schools, and so can ask teachers to oversee lunch distribution and clean-up, thus saving an entire salaried position other public schools must fund. Wealthier suburban districts are often willing to cover the difference for the proportionally few free or reduced meals they serve. Private schools can simply charge all students for the lunch.

http://www.ednews.org/articles/revolution-foods----is-it-really-the-school-lunch-solution.html

[Recursion]

8. This is why we should close the 15% of charter schools run by for-profit EMOs

And dubious about the non-profit EMO-run ones too, but this would be a good start.

(There are public district schools run by EMOs, too, but not enough to get up in arms about.)

[msongs]

6. "family choice" = we got our precious spawn covered so screw everyone else nt

[surrealAmerican]

7. Are they perhaps doing this deliberately to discourage poorer parents ...

... from sending their children to these schools?