Sunday, January 25, 2009

 

What's so terrible about a cheese sandwich?

Lately there has been a big dispute in the local public school board about how to deal with parents who fail to pay their children's lunch bills in a timely manner. Until recently, the board focused on getting those who might be eligible (under federal guidelines) for free or reduced cafeteria services to actually apply. The board seems to be in a quandary about how to approach those whose income does not qualify them for subsidized meals.

I had my own experiences with this process when my son and daughter were in grade school. Although the meal charges were never more than I could afford, I often forgot to pay them. I can't remember whether they mailed me a bill or gave it to one of the kids to take home, but the bills got to me. I just didn't always take care of them. Once, when I went in to pay a late bill, I remember apologizing to the cafeteria lady and thanking her for letting my kids charge so many lunches. "We don't let students go hungry," she told me. "Even if you totally forgot to pay it, we'd give your child a peanut butter or cheese sandwich."

I found her attitude reassuring. I have also seen school cafeteria workers pay for kids themselves when they know that the family is having financial problems and may be too proud or afraid to fill out the paperwork for a free lunch. All this is an introduction to why I was so disgusted by this recent story in the Albuquerque Journal:


APS Seeks Sandwich Alternative

Anti-Hunger Group Would Raise Funds to Pay Off Debt

BY ANDREA SCHOELLKOPF
Saturday, January 24, 2009

Albuquerque school district officials said Friday they may be willing to stop giving cold cheese sandwiches to children with delinquent lunch accounts if the community can pay most of the $100,000 debt.

However, school board member Jon Barela said he fears that rescinding the policy will push the debt up, as deadbeats and others return to charging meals without penalty.

"We don't want to be bailing people out of their responsibility because they know the community is going to step up and pay this bill," Barela said.

Students receive a cheese sandwich in lieu of a hot meal if they have exceeded a set amount of charged meals, ranging from two at high schools to 10 at elementaries. The district has already collected $40,000 of the initial $140,000 debt in the three weeks the policy has been in effect.

District officials met with anti-hunger advocates on Friday to work on an agreement that could be presented to the school board during a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Albuquerque Public Schools City Centre.

Randy Royster, Albuquerque Community Foundation executive director, said within a 90-day period, his organization is willing to raise money for the $50,000 debt incurred by children who have since qualified for the federal free and reduced price lunches.

However, the anti-hunger officials said they would not accept a policy that still includes an alternative meal because it stigmatizes children. They said APS should use collection agencies and other enforcement to go after deadbeat parents.

At one high-poverty school, five families that owed $100 or more per child were rejected for the free lunch program after showing incomes of $100,000 or more, food services director Mary Swift said.

Here is another memory: A few years ago I had the opportunity to know a couple from Albuquerque who worked as missionaries in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. I was impressed by a lot of the things they did, operating on a shoestring through prayer and contributions, to help out people who had real needs. In the morning they drove their unassuming, much-repaired van across the border bridge from El Paso, Texas. It was their habit to prepare a big stack of cheese sandwiches that they handed out on the bridge, along with water bottles, to the many vendors who crisscrossed through the slow-moving traffic on the Mexico side of the bridge. These genuinely hungry people were thrilled to see them, and crowded around the van.

Water and sandwiches weren't the only things they brought, of course. They also exchanged prayers, stories and companionship, and treated both Mexican and U.S. allies with respect. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I have a hard time seeing the offer of a cheese sandwich as an embarrassment.

As a parent, and a taxpayer, I find the cheese sandwich solution much preferable to the expense and real public relations nightmare of setting bill collectors on parents.

Item: I'd like to know who are these "anti-hunger advocates" the Albuquerque Journal keeps quoting. Do they wear masks, like Zorro? Since when does a decent reporter use this kind of vague attribution?

Item: There is a pointed and entertaining take on this issue (from a teacher, no less) on the "'Burque Babble" site.

an excerpt:
Public school cafeterias are the sight of rampant, pervasive and endlessly fascinating/alarming (for us sociology types) stigmatization, discrimination and every -ism you can possibly think of, including racism, beauty-ism and capitalism. In short, the public school cafeteria is like Lord of the Flies meets Thomas Hobbes meets the Black Hole of Calcutta. Only worse.

So for someone to object to the "stigmatization" brought about by APS
making the sons/daughters of deadbeat parents (who aren't eligible for "free/reduced lunch", yet don't give Joanie/Johnny a couple of bucks to pay for lunch each day), let me remind everyone that the kids (especially the middle school ones) are WAY, WAY, WAY ahead of the adults when it comes to finding potential discerning points ripe for stigmatization.

For just one example, let's look at the "free/reduced lunch" issue. At my school, there are two kinds of kids at lunch: those who stand in the line for the APS
lunch and those who buy lunch in the "snack bar" line. There are also a few kids who bring their own lunch, and these anomalies are openly ridiculed for being different, eating sensibly, etc. Notably, it is these "bring their own lunch" kids who invariably look among the most healthy/fit in the school.

But back to the two larger groups. It is universally taken as fact that a student who stands in line for the APS
lunch is getting a "free/reduced lunch". Otherwise, why would these folks eat the crappy APS lunch? This line is very slow-moving because all the kids have to punch in their "free/reduced lunch" numbers into a device near the cash register. The cash register in the APS line almost never has change, as almost all the students punch in the little numbers.

Meanwhile, all the "rich" kids overeat in the "snack bar" line, getting airport-priced slices of pizza and convenience-store priced "baked" Cheetos (baked because of new dietary guidelines...whereas the pizza is nowhere near such guidelines).

It is from this dichotomy that tons of other class/other distinctions follow, including all those race/looks/language issues that still plague our society. And, being public school, you've also got your bullies and assorted other losers who get to have the time of their life at age 13 intimidating kids, everyone knowing the likelihood that life for these bullies/losers is most certainly headed downhill from here.

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