What's For Lunch?

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Normally ...

Oh hell! Who am I trying to kid?? When has this blog ever been normal?

Friday's are usually a wrap-up of the week here, but y'all have been getting the play-by-play all week long. I just couldn't bring myself to post it all again. Call it denial (still having some issues coming to terms with some of what's happened this week) or just a gift to all of you, but I'm not doing it this week. So there!

Instead, I thought I'd talk about school lunch.

I've mentioned before that I often listen to The Annie & Burl Live show on Blog Talk Radio. Wednesday they had Mrs. Q from "Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project" on their show. If you have a child who eats school lunch, you really should listen to Wednesday night's show and subscribe to Mrs. Q's blog.

In an effort to shed light on the impact of school lunch nutrition on learning, Mrs. Q - an educator in a school with a high percentage of students receiving free/reduced price lunches - decided to eat school lunch every day. In her blog she documents what is served, how it tasted and often, her observations of the student reactions to lunch. Additionally, she has guest bloggers who address ways to improve the system. Mrs. Q's project inspired me to take a closer look at the school lunch program at Cam's school.

Cam's middle school serves two meals - breakfast ($1.50) before school and lunch ($2.50) over the lunch hour. Based on our income, Cam qualifies for reduced priced lunches. What this means is that his FIRST lunch costs $0.40 and then he pays full price for any seconds ... or thirds. It is not unusual for Cam to spend $25 - $30 per week on school lunches.

I was a little surprised when I downloaded the current menus. Quite honestly, the breakfast menu (which Cam NEVER purchases from because it requires a different meal card than lunch and he can't find his breakfast card) looks pretty tasty ...

The lunch menu doesn't look too bad either ...


But after reading Mrs. Q's blog, something tells me that what looks and sounds really good on the menu might not be so tasty and appealing in real life.

Remember back in the day when we were kids? When schools had kitchens and meals were cooked in the kitchen and then served by blue-haired ladies on plastic trays with real stainless steel eating utensils?? The school lunch model has changed drastically since those days.

Cam's school does not have a kitchen. Prepackaged food is trucked in daily and heated in ovens or on steam tables. Nothing is cooked on site. Although there is a full lunch available, Cam tells me most kids purchase the "Grill" items (cheeseburger, hamburger, etc.) because they are easy to store in your locker to eat later *throws up a little in my mouth* 8th graders at the middle school have an 11:00AM lunch, and school doesn't let out until 3:30PM. They get hungry after lunch.

I tried to find nutritional information on Cam's school lunches (sadly, this was the first time I even considered looking for it) and guess what?? Although the menu tells me nutritional information is available on their website, it isn't. The nutritional information page links only to nutritional information for the elementary school lunches ... and that link takes you to a blank page. Hmmm ...

Silly me ... I assumed that a Federally funded school lunch program would serve nutritious meals to our school kids. Instead, it appears they are doing little more than filling kids' bellies ... with low fiber, high sugar/fat food "stuffs".

I have options. I can choose to make Cam take his lunch, but I cannot provide nutrition for the $0.40 he pays for a school lunch. It's too bad the school lunch program can't either ...

Mrs. Q on Annie & Burl Live

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Who Cut the Cheese?

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We've all been there, either as a parent or as a kid - the forgotten school lunch/lunch money. Hell! I'm still there on occasion. But I digress.

When I was in school, if you forgot your lunch or your lunch money, you received a lunch and your parents paid for it the next day. It wasn't the end of the world, and it wasn't a lifestyle choice. If your family couldn't afford to provide lunch, they applied for free or reduced price lunches through the National School Lunch Program. Food was served on reusable plastic trays and ketchup counted as a vegetable. Those were the good old days! Now? Times they are a changing, and so are school policies.

The official lunch policy in Cam's school district is:

In an emergency only, a student who has forgotten their lunch may charge a school lunch. The child should bring the money to pay for this lunch the next school day. All monies sent to school for lunch purchases should be sent in an envelope with the student’s name and amount written on the outside. This should be given to the teacher upon arrival to school in the morning.

Seems reasonable enough. Now, we do have the option of using a debit system for lunches. I put money in Cam's account via a web site payment and he enters his PIN to purchase his lunch at school. When the balance in his lunch account gets below $10, I get a friendly email reminder and I add additional money to his account. Pretty simple.

As is so often the case these days, there are people who take advantage of the system. School districts are seeing a huge increase in delinquent school lunch accounts as well as kids showing up to school without a lunch. It got so bad in the Albuquerque Public Schools (unpaid lunch charges hovered around $55,000 in 2006. That jumped to $130,000 at the end of the 2007-08 school year. It was $140,000 through the first five months of this school year) that they implemented a Cheese Sandwich Policy.

The Cheese Sandwich Policy provides a cold cheese sandwich, fruit and milk to each and every child who comes to school without lunch/lunch money. The school district calls these "courtesy meals" - parents whose kids are served them call it punishment and complain that their children are being embarrassed and humiliated for being poor.

News flash! If you are too poor to provide $2.50 for a hot lunch, or to provide a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from home, apply for the free/reduced price lunch program! That is why it is available. Sure, a sudden loss of a job and a delay in processing the application can make things tough for a week or two, and your child may need to eat the "courtesy meal" until that can be worked out, but it's lunch, right? A fairly nutritious meal?

I see nothing wrong with this policy. It's not intended to permanently force children to eat cheese sandwiches, but rather is provided as a stop-gap measure until a free/reduced price lunch program application can be processed, or for those parental brain fart moments. What do you think?

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