Cheese Sandwiches and Lunch Debt

Posted on Monday 25 June 2007 at 3:48 PM in A Little Bit Of Everything - Post Comment

I just heard this on the radio:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cheese18jun18,0,7344584.story?coll=la-home-center  

This is really sad to me...the parents not paying part.  Parents don't pay the bills for the lunches their kids accumilated (in 2004 the school lunch debt at the school was $300,000), so the children are turned away at the lunch line and forced to go hungry until the bill is paid.  

Ok, they aren't doing that (they should) but instead of letting them starve they are giving them a cheese sandwich.  Wheat bread with a slice of cheese.   But the parents are getting upset because their kids are getting teased for getting a cheese sandwich.  Now, these aren't poor families either.

At least the kids are getting something to eat...even if they don't like it.  If they choose not to eat it, it's not the schools fault.  Maybe the alternative is to close down the school lunch program completely and tell the parents to make bagged lunches for the kids.  I hear bagged lunches today have an even bigger stigma than cheese sandwiches.   Grrrrr.