When I first started this blog I planned on using it for both personal and business posts. I told myself I would never post a complaining or ranting thread.
Today I take except to my rule.
A…Huge…Exception.
A situation came to light yesturday via our local media and I am so mad I am seeing red (bright red!) and spitting nails. I thought after a good nights sleep I would feel better but I don’t….In fact I have an underlying desire to cry.
Before my rant I do want to say….I sympathize with the Edmonds School District. Money is money and an organization just can’t afford to keep giving away things for free (even though the school district recently purchased land at twice the market value..but that’s another story, and yes, this property happens to be very close to us and I get mad every time I see it!)
Something needs to be done.
But….Not….This….Way!
Picture This:
It’s lunchtime…a time of joy for most children. They are hungry, are looking forward to a good lunch and recess with their friends.
They get in the lunch line and fill up their trays with food. At the end of the line the cashier checks the students account and if their parents owe $10.00 or more the cashier is required to remove the food from the tray (all of it, including drinks) and throw the food in the garbage (due to ’safety’ reasons). The child then gets a cold cheese sandwich thrown down on their tray (which consists of 2 pieces of bread and a slice of cheese-where is the mayo & mustard? you can’t have a cheese sandwich without condiments!) and NO DRINK.
The child is publicly humiliated in front of his peers, the food is being wasted by being thrown away and money is spent for nothing.
I fail to see the logic in this.
Can you imagine what that child feels like as he sees his lunch being thrown in the garbage right in front of him???
Can you image what that cashier feels as she removes the beloved lunch from the childs tray and trades it for a cold cheese sandwich AND then later sees the child sobbing???
I don’t understand why these so-called educatated people running the school district can’t come up with a better plan other than public humilation and the wasting food and money.
Isn’t that sort of like calling the kettle black???
There has been public outrage at the school district over this so I am hoping that with enough public outcry the district will find a better (and more humane) way of dealing with school lunches and late/non-paying parents.
I should feel better after ranting….but I don’t. My bright red has faded a little but damned it… I’m still chewing nails.
UPDATED 1:00pm
Well, Well, Well….
Seems like the Edmonds School District has had a change of heart (gosh, do ya think it was due to public outcry!!??). They have suspended their new ‘cold cheese sandwich’ policy and all kids will get their normal hot lunch.
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Edmonds Takes Away Hot Lunches
EDMONDS, Wash. (AP) – Students in the Edmonds School District are learning a tough, new lesson this year: If you’re hungry for a hot meal, don’t forget your lunch money.
Students who arrive at the end of the lunch line with hot food and a carton of milk on their trays but with lunch accounts that are $10 or more behind may have that tray taken away and replaced with a cold cheese sandwich and no drink.
The new policy is designed to recover $207,763 in unpaid lunch fees from last year.
The district has asked cashiers to check every student account to make sure they have money for the food they have picked up in line. If they don’t, the cashier is supposed to throw away the food on confiscated trays, because of food safety concerns, Sara Conroy, interim director of food service, told The Herald newspaper of Everett.
When school started last week, 2,750 Edmonds students owed $10 or more. After five days, $45,269 has been repaid from 961 students, according to the district.
“We can’t continue – day after day after day after day – to pay for these lunches and to provide a child with a lunch without getting payment,” Conroy said. “You couldn’t just go to McDonald’s without any money and expect service. We can only do it for so long and we can’t do it any longer. It sounds ugly when you say the food has been discarded, but what can we do?”
Some cafeteria workers say they aren’t cooperating with the new school policy.
Staff at Hazelwood Elementary in Lynnwood have been donating money to buy lunches for kids who would otherwise be served a sandwich, cashier Barbara Burley said. The donations won’t last much longer. Burley said she will refuse to take milk and fruit away from young kids.
“They’re children and it’s not their fault,” said Burley, who has worked at Hazelwood for six years. “For some of these kids, it’s the only decent meal they get in a day. Could you do it? Could you look into a kindergartner’s eyes and take away their lunch and give them a cold cheese sandwich and nothing else? I just can’t. If I lose my job over it, OK.”
Federal laws aimed at making sure kids eat balanced meals require school staff to review lunches before children eat. That’s why the cashier is at the end of the lunch line in Edmonds schools, district spokeswoman Debbie Jakala said. Everett schools have a staff member at the end of the line who reviews each child’s lunch, Webber said.
Years ago, middle and high school students who came to school in Edmonds without money wouldn’t receive any lunch at all, district spokeswoman Debbie Jakala said. Elementary students were given a sandwich.
The district changed its policy in 2004 to allow students to charge as many hot meals as they wanted, and some families rang up hundreds of dollars in debt, Jakala said. This year, district staff decided they needed to do something to reclaim the money.
Over the summer, the district left automated voicemail messages for parents whose children owed money.
“Without question, this is a difficult thing to implement – and we’re trying to strike a very solid balance between being fiscally responsible and making sure kids are fed,” Jakala said.
Many of the kids who owe money would qualify for free lunches through a government program for low-income families. The difficulty is getting parents to fill out the paperwork and enroll their kids, Jakala said. Those forms were mailed to parents this summer.
The number of students getting free and reduced-price lunches has doubled this year – from 623 last year to 1,128 students approved.
Many parents who don’t meet income guidelines to qualify for free lunches still struggle with money, said Crystal FitzSimons, a director at the Washington, D.C.-based Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit group that focuses on public nutrition policies. To qualify for free meals, a family of three cannot earn more than $23,000.
“When you think of rent and transportation costs and food-at-home cost and child-care costs – it’s very difficult for families to break even,” she said. “We would encourage the school to reconsider.”
Burley said she understands that the district is in a tough spot, and she doesn’t want parents taking advantage of the system. She sent her children and her grandkids to Hazelwood, and she can’t bear the thought of kids being punished for their parents’ mistakes.
“At least give them milk,” she said.
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Edmonds School Superintendent Nick Brossoit – This Schrammie is for YOU!
It’s a matter of platitudes versus policy.
So while children may be the future, some kids aren’t getting lunch today.
And that’s why I’d like to ask Edmonds School Superintendent Nick Brossoit to quit conjugating verbs and come on down.
Mr. Nick presides over more than 21,000 students who go to school in Edmonds.
Last year, some of those kids left behind a lunch tab of more than $200,000.
So this year, the district is teaching those kids a lesson.
The district has decided that any elementary school kid who owes lunch money has to turn in the sumptious meal he carefully placed on his cafeteria tray and trade it for a dry sandwich.
No milk.
No juice.
Just a slice of cheddar on whole grain bread.
But here’s the real kicker: Whatever nutritious meal some kid had chosen, but didn’t have the money to pay for, is then THROWN INTO THE TRASH because the Edmonds school district is concerned about food safety.
In the end, no money is saved.
In the end, the food is wasted and the hungry kid is left feeling like a penny on the counter waiting for change.
So for humiliating dozens of Johnnys and Janes; for feeding little kids a lesson at the expense of taking the food from their mouths, please, take a bow Mr. Nick, because this “Schrammie” is for you.
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Updated 1:00 pm
Edmonds School District Suspends Their Cold Cheese Sandwich Policy
EDMONDS, Wash. – Edmonds students without enough lunch money will get a hot lunch today, after all.
The Edmonds School District said today it will temporarily put on hold its practice of substituting a cold cheese sandwich for the hot meal when students don’t have enough money in their accounts.
When school started last week, almost 2,800 students had unpaid lunch bills of $10 or more.
The district says it was forced to take action, a decision some employees call heartbreaking.
“There was a child that came through today. I took his lunch away from him, handed him his cheese sandwich,” said Barbara Burley, school cafeteria worker. “I looked over at him and he was just sitting there crying.”
Parents and school leaders are invited to meet with district staff next Wednesday to talk about an “I owe you” policy and other options
Some parents say kids shouldn’t be sandwiched in the middle of this mess.
“The kids aren’t responsible for that amount of money, their parents are so, if there was some way to collect the money rather than punishing the students that would be the best,” said parent Kay McCloud.
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Rebecca
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