Schools May Have to Absorb Students’ Unpaid Lunch Bills

New York Times ^ | February 8, 2011 | FERNANDA SANTOS

[proud American in Canada]

There wasn't soy in anything when I was a kid, and there were also no peanut allergies. There's soy in everything now, and the plants are related.

That's very interesting--I didn't know that.

[MrPiper]

I wonder how those Cheeeldren will handle credit when they grow older...

who needs credit when someone else is buying your food......

Life is wonderful in the good old USSA!

[joe fonebone]

so, the department of education is also responsible for:...

establishment and maintenance of restauraunt facilities...

clean up of garbage and trash from premises...

security of building and said occupants...

limosine and other transportation to and from facilty for all that attend...

and I thought schools were a place for learning....

[CJ Wolf]

It’s because we no longer give babies honey.

[nina0113]

who needs credit when someone else is buying your food......

Still assumes that there's food available to buy...I don't think that's a safe assumption long term.

[ArmstedFragg]

What part of “if they don’t pay, stop feeding the little #&@*s” isn’t clear?

[SeeSac]

Real Peanut Allergies are extremely rare. Most children do not have peanut allergies, their stupid parents just think they do.

Rare but can be deadly. Stupid.

[ArmstedFragg]

No, you can't. Too many children apparently have peanut allergies. I wonder why that is.

Parents conceived during the Carter administration?

[Fletcher J]

heh. True, and ironically it’s the 300 parents that *are* paying for the lunches that are branded as bums. Why worry over the small percentage that does pay? The Feds pay for free/reduced lunches, but if a “payer” doesn’t pay up, then it comes out of local school system’s funds.

Also, the reason the rate of free/reduced lunches is so high is that the federal government distributes a big chunk of educational dollars based on community “need”. So the more kids that are approved for free lunches, the more money the school district gets. My local district begs parents to fill out the free lunch forms if they can get approved, even if the parents fully intend to pay for lunch themselves anyway.

[conejo99]

I have a different problem. The school officials have ordered my kids to buy lunch and then billed me for it. Once the school was open for a half day only, so we just gave them a snack (juice and crackers) instead of a sandwich. School rules kick in and I start getting automated calls every day for each child telling me I owe money (but not telling me how much). Once we ran out of bread so we gave one of the kids pop tarts, crackers and juice. Once again the school ordered that a lunch be bought. In no case was the lunch actually eaten. What we gave was tastier and what they wanted anyway.

[familyof5]

Here we give the elementary kids a cheese sandwich and milk until they get their parents to pay up. The middle and high school kids don’t get anything. We make sure that the ‘poor baby’ crowd understands that it’s the parents job to feed their kids, not the school.