Thread: Some schools cut lunch options for kids who struggle to pay

Some schools cut lunch options for kids who struggle to pay


Proposed nutritional guidelines could add even more strain to meal programs
Below:

At the turn of the new year, the Lee County, Fla., public schools were losing about $2,000 a week on school lunches. Then came the cheese sandwiches.

When classes resumed Jan. 3 after the winter break, the district — the 40th-largest in the United States, with about 80,000 pupils — had a problem. Up to 1,100 pupils weren't paying for their meals, school officials say.

Because the National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, requires participating schools to provide nourishing meals for all pupils, what do school administrators do if a pupil shows up in the lunchroom with no cash and with no money left in his or her electronic meal account?

Most raise their prices for kids who can pay, according to research by the nonprofit School Nutrition Association, which found that nearly 60 percent of public school districts raised lunch prices in 2009, the last full year for which national figures were available.

The Agriculture Department — which administers the NSLP — says roughly two-thirds of the 5 billion meals served under the program each year are free or are sold at a reduced price. That means you can't keep raising meal prices indefinitely, because the burden is disproportionally borne by the pupils who buy the one-third of meals sold at full price.

Solving that conundrum is especially urgent now because new federal school nutrition regulations in the works could soon require schools to serve more — and more expensive — fresh produce, lean meats and whole grains.

'We can help you'

School administrators are eager to make it clear that the last thing they want to do is to embarrass children or make them go hungry. In January, the Lee County, Fla., Public Schools sent this notice home to parents:

All lunch money must be paid at the time of purchase. The School District of Lee County's Nutrition Department is federally funded and not authorized to extend credit for meals. Therefore, if your child does not have lunch money, he/she will be given one warning to pay the following day. On the second day, if money is not paid, your child will receive an "alternate" meal. The "alternate" meal consists of a cheese sandwich and juice. The idea that seems to work best for most of our parents is to send a check in to pre-pay as far in advance as you can. Any money left over in a lunch account is available the next school year and can even be used at a new school if you should move. Please make sure your child has lunch money or brings lunch from home.

IF YOU ARE HAVING FINANCIAL DIFFICULTY, WE CAN HELP YOU! Fill out a family application at school OR go online at [the district's Web site]. One application will cover all of your children attending a Lee County Public School.

Once again, please be aware that we will not offer a regular meal to students who have not paid or have not qualified for "free" lunch. We do not want to embarrass any child, so please make sure you keep accounts up to date.

.Here's the option they hit upon in Lee County, one that's similar to steps being taken in an increasing number of schools across the country: Kids who can't pay get one free hot lunch. After that, they get a bare-bones "alternate meal." In Lee County, it's a cheese sandwich and a 4-ounce juice box. Take it or leave it.

.It's not as coldhearted as it might sound at first.

Eligibility for the subsidized lunch program is based on family income. Since the economy went into recession, millions of families have fallen below the government poverty line for the first time. But many of them apparently have no idea they're eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches.

Moreover, there's a significant "stigma associated with participation" in some communities, especially among older teenagers, the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service found in a 2008 report.

While there's no hard data on how many eligible families aren't enrolled, those factors mean "the NSLP faces the constant challenge of encouraging eligible households to apply for participation," the report said.

If a school can get more eligible children enrolled, its direct costs go down because the federal government picks up more of the bill. Slenderized lunches, administrators say, are simply part of an aggressive campaign to make families aware of the benefit and get them signed up.

"If they need assistance, we give them assistance," said Wayne Nagy, the Lee County district's food and nutrition services director. But "if they don't need assistance, we expect them to pay."

Within two weeks of instituting the new rule, Lee County schools had cut their losses on unpaid meals by 80 percent, Nagy said. Nearly 750 pupils signed up for free or reduced-price meals, the district reported, and now the district serves an average of only two alternate lunches a day at each of the system's 87 schools.

'Alternative lunches' spread the bland
School menus are decided at the local level, and there's no national menu database, so it's impossible to calculate how many schools downgrade meal options for pupils who struggle to pay. It's not clear that the schools that do so are even a statistically significant proportion of the 100,000 or so schools in the National School Lunch Program.

But a search of online school lunch menus found that "alternate" or "alternative" lunches of a sandwich (usually cheese or peanut butter) along with juice or milk were being served this month in public school districts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington state.

Strictly speaking, the lunches meet current federal guidelines because they offer at least a quarter of the recommended daily calorie intake made up of grains, protein and dairy. But that doesn't mean they're filling or appetizing.

New on the menu

The Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 law raises the federal reimbursement to schools for qualified students from $2.68 to $2.74 per lunch, provided that the lunches meet new nutrition standards being considered by the Agriculture Department. President Barack Obama had called for an increase of 18 cents.

The new nutrition standards must be "science-based," standardized for all foods sold in schools and consistent with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans published by the departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services.

In January, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack proposed that the guidelines:

• Increase the amount of fruit vegetables served to at least 1¼ cups per day, with a weekly requirement for dark green and orange vegetable and limits on starchy vegetables like potatoes. Pupils would be required to select at least one fruit or vegetable.
• Reduce the average maximum daily offering of meat from 3 ounces to 2.4 ounces.
• Require that at least half of all grain products be made from whole grains.
• Require all milk to be 1 percent fat or skim.
• Eliminate trans-fats and limit saturated fats to less than 10 percent of total calories.
• Reduce sodium levels by 53 percent over 10 years.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture


.In December, the Harrison Hills City School District of Ohio, which was in the hole for $9,000 in unpaid meals, began offering two slices of bread, a slice of cheese and a small milk carton to pupils who couldn't pay and weren't in the free or reduced-price program.

"That's ridiculous that they just give us that to eat," said Sarah Barger, 18, a student at Harrison Central High School.

.Things are a little better in the Homewood City, Ala., schools, where kids get fruit to go with their sandwich and milk. It's a veritable feast compared to the alternative lunch they got last school year, when parents complained about the spare offering of crackers, cheese and milk.

"Well, we will not let a child go hungry in Homewood. It's our job to feed children," said Carolyn Keeney, director of child nutrition for the Homewood City School District.

But "if they owe money or they don't have money in their lunch account, they're not allowed to get any extra items," said Keeney, whose meal program was honored last year by the Agriculture Department's Healthier U.S. Schools program.

(Don't even think about dessert. As the Northern Bedford County, Pa., School District notes: "A dessert is not a NSLP required component and is not included in the alternate lunch.")

School officials stress that they're not trying to punish anyone. If there are pupils who can't afford their lunches, schools want to get them into the NSLP free/reduced-priced program, in which they're guaranteed two nutritious meals a day, paid for in part or in whole by the federal government.

"This is an issue we're trying to resolve," said Michael Cook, a spokesman for the Las Cruces, N.M., Public School District, which he said was trying to make certain that any student who can't afford the main meal on the menu "is served some kind of alternative" rather than go hungry.




http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41631002/ns ... _nutrition

Schools were never meant to be restaurants providing free food. They are already in enough financial straits. More parents need to start packing their kids' lunches. For nearly $3 a day, they can pay for lunch items that are tasty and nutrional and have more variety if they really want to. They can get off their butts and make some effort to pay for their kids lunches and not expect others to do so. If they can PROVE they cannot afford to pack a lunch, then ok give them some help. Get the vending machines out of schools (kids are becoming too overweight) and give them no option but to eat what is put before them and again, if the kids won't eat the school lunch - pack one. But there is just too much expectations put on schools today. Babysit my kids, feed them breakfast and lunch, educate them but don't say no to the precious darlings because it might hurt their feelings. Give them good grades whether they deserve them or not and let them get away with murder....