How Can a Free Lunch Be a Punishment?

You have heard the saying that people should always pay their bills right? I am sure you also heard that children are responsible for the sins of their fathers. Well after running budget deficits like most other school districts, the Albuquerque school district decided that they would no longer let children charge lunches that have an outstanding bill. They have decided to not let children charge anymore lunches until the ones that had been charged are paid for.

If a child does not have lunch and has an unpaid charge for a lunch that had remained delinquent they are given a meal of a cold cheese sandwich, some fruit, and a container of milk. There are school districts in Florida, Washington, and California have instituted similar policies to deal with the budget difficulties and delinquent lunch accounts. This alternate meal meets the various nutritional guidelines set forth by the federal government. The district allows the students to charge anywhere from two to ten lunches and if the account is not settled up they are not allowed to charge anymore.

Opponents claim that it signals out poor children. Parents hold told of children being pulled out of the lunch line and give the cheese sandwich. There have been meetings with parents discussing how embarrassed their children were and some not wanting to return to school. Some have begged the district stop it. The district counters that they had sent letter home warning o the change and that ample reminders are sent about unpaid charges. They Albuquerque district noted that it collected $50,000 of $140,000 in delinquent lunch charges from the first five months of the year when the policy went into effect. In the economic times we are in, that about is the biggest mark of being right is being successful. The policy surely had an impact on that. Those dollars would have to come out of the taxpayer's pockets if they had not been paid.

The head of the district's food and nutrition services Mary Swift, offers some pretty strong arguments in addition to the fiscal one above. She notes that the policy was under debate for some time, so parents had ample warning. Children with delinquent accounts get a letter sent home weekly and phone calls. She said it best when she stated that the cheese sandwich meal the district serves should be thought of as a "courtesy meal" and not and "alternate meal". She further noted that the vast majority of districts let children without money just go hungry.

Ok here is my two cents on the matter. I see the point that the parents feel that their children are being singled out because they are poor, but I do not feel that is a fair assessment. The main thing to realize is the kids are getting a free lunch at no obligation. It is not like they are being told to eat nothing. When I was growing up we could not charge lunches past fifth grade. In middle school there was quite a bit of lunch ticket fraud in which people would say they forgot their ticket when they went through another line to buy lunch. They then traded the other lunch or sold it. It got to the point of the policy of "no money, no ticket, no lunch". Now the Albuquerque district is actually feeding the kids. I am sure that lots of the kids who are getting free lunch and the cheese sandwiches could also be illegal immigrants and they tend to come here criminally and suck our benefits dry. Another important factor is that the district recovered over twenty five percent of the delinquent charges when they instituted this policy.

The biggest issue here really comes down to responsibility. It someone's parents are poor they should be getting free lunch. That is what it is there for. There is no shame in being poor, but stealing is something to be ashamed of. I am sure some of those kids are old enough to know that if they chose to go to a lunch line with no money or ticket and outstanding bills that they are stealing. This is wrong and not how kids should be taught. In the case of the potential illegal immigrants I am sure they may be afraid to get free lunch due to being found out and deported which they should get deported. They are criminals and bleeding our great nation dry. Grow up people. This is a free meal. Theoretically a kid could go to school year long without money and get free lunch every day at a cost to the taxpayers. One final thought is that a cheese sandwich is really not that bad. I like cheese sandwiches. I do think they could offer a choice of that or a peanut butter sandwich, but that is just my opinion. If more districts did this then there might be less budget problems with districts. I am behind this.

Sources

The News Journal

The New York Times