Schools May Have to Absorb Students’ Unpaid Lunch Bills

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Of the 2,200 students at Intermediate School 61 in Corona, Queens, 86 percent receive free cafeteria lunches. Some others pay a reduced price, and some are supposed to pay full price.

But not all of their parents pay what they are supposed to, and recently, the school’s principal, Joseph Lisa, has been spending a lot of time trying to collect money from them.

--snip--

The city used to pick up the unpaid tabs. Since 2004, it has absorbed at least $42 million in unpaid lunch fees.

But that is a luxury it can no longer afford, according to the Department of Education, which has weathered several rounds of budget cuts, with more still to come. So it has been telling principals to collect overdue lunch money or risk having it docked from their school budgets.

Of the city’s 1,600 schools, 1,043 owe a collective $2.5 million to the Education Department for meals served in the first three months of this school year. That puts them on track to be $8 million behind by the end of the school year.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/education/09lunches.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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Similarly, the middle class absorbs unpaid taxes that the rich don't want to pay.

[GodlessBiker]

1. For those who have to pay full price, shouldn't they pay full price when they get their food?

[totodeinhere]

3. And if they don't have the money, what are we supposed to do? Starve them?

I don't think so. If their parents don't give them lunch money, it's not the students' fault.

[Hello_Kitty]

6. Feed the kids but garnish the parents' wages or put a lien on their property.

They owe money to the government and they should have to repay it, plus interest.

[Xithras]

13. There's a problem with that.

In order for ANY creditor to attach your wages, there either has to be a valid credit agreement in place providing them "creditor" status, or there has to be an order from a judge. You can't just garnish someone's wages because you say they owe you money. You either need signed documentation to prove it, or you need to convince a judge.

1. Schools wouldn't have creditor status for "cash" parents, because those parents would have never needed to sign papers for their kids lunch.

2. The legal costs involved with collecting the debt would likely exceed the value of the debt itself. I don't know of many judges who would allow a creditor to claim $500 in collection fees over a $20 unpaid bill (attorneys are rarely cheap). The odds that the schools could collect enough to recover the debt AND the associated legal costs are very small.

[GodlessBiker]

7. I know it's been a "few" years, but yeah, I didn't get food if I didn't have money.

I remember I borrowed money from a friend or bummed some food from a buddy. Sometimes a parent was able to slip away from work to come to school to give me the money.

I know, things change.

[totodeinhere]

16. When I was in school any student without lunch money was given a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich, an apple and a carton of milk. Actually, that's not a bad lunch, but unfortunately the other students would laugh at kids who had to get the free lunch. Kids can be brutal sometimes.

[hughee99]

2. With 1,043 families owing $2.5 million dollars for 3 months of lunches

That works out to almost $2,400 per family (keep in mind, for ONLY THREE MONTHS of lunches).

"New York City charges $1.50 for a school lunch, like beef ravioli, roasted turkey breast with gravy or Italian meatballs. "

Assuming 23 school days a month (which is probably too high) for each month $2,400/69 is about $35. Does this seem a little high to anyone else for even for multiple children? This is leaving aside that some students are paying a reduced price.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Schools, not families. eom

[hughee99]

5. Ah, that makes much more sense.

Thanks for helping me understand. :)

[WatsonT]

8. How expensive could it be to give free lunches to kids

cut out the meat and most of the dairy and give them basic healthy meals.

We can afford to send food aid to the rest of the world for free but not feed kids here? Our priorities are wrong.

[Systematic Chaos]

9. +1

I hear you. How expensive would meals based around things like potatoes and beans be? For complete nutrition that doesn't rot in the colon for a week?

Seriously. :(

[WatsonT]

11. No kidding

and the healthy foods are generally cheaper.

And since this is a federal program they can waive taxes and other fees as they wish.

Beans and rice, pasta with veggies, PB&J and fruit (not all the time), stir fried veggies and rice. It really isn't that hard to feed large amounts of people well for very little per person.

[Xithras]

14. Because most of that would go straight into the trash.

Give a 6 year old a tray of stir fried veggies and rice, and most won't eat it. Same goes for pasta and veggies. Rice is also considered a "hell food" in elementary school cafeterias and is generally banned...the grains are so small, they are going to end up EVERYWHERE. It's "hell" to clean up afterward. Same goes for peas.

Schools play a balancing act with kids food. While they want to keep it cheap and healthy, the HIGHER priority is to feed them enough calories and protein to keep their mental acuteness up so that they will concentrate better in a classroom. There are a ton of studies that directly link child hunger with learning ability.

It is BETTER to give a kid a slightly less healthy food that they'll EAT, than it is to give them a healthier food that they won't eat. The overriding goal, at the end of lunch, is simply to assure that all of the kids go back into their classrooms with tummies full of some sort of reasonably healthy sustenance. That usually means a lot of things like spaghetti, and cafeteria pizza, and bologna sandwiches.

[WatsonT]

17. I wonder what all those kids

in Asia eat. Must be some lean times for them if rice and veggies are unacceptable.

Give them some set of healthy food, they can choose to eat it or not. After a few missed meals I reckon they'll learn to eat what's in front of them.

This notion that we have to give kids what they feel like eating rather than what they should eat is a major part of the obesity problem. Little Mikey won't eat his broccoli, he just wants pizza and coke. So we just give him pizza and coke. Now he's obese and can't sit still.

[Xithras]

18. You're missing the point of school meals.

The goal isn't to make them healthy, but simply to fight off hunger. The function of schools is NOT to feed kids, but to educate them. There have been countless studies showing that hungry kids are incapable of learning as well as well fed kids. The goal, therefore, is simple: The school is feeding the kids sufficiently to allow them to concentrate in class until the end of the school day. The schools interest is purely on helping children learn.

If kids goes back to class hungry because the school served food that the kids wouldn't eat, then the SCHOOL has failed. Those kids will not learn as well as their lunchbag toting peers, and will quickly lag behind in school. After only a few months, you're going to see a statistically noticeable drop in the academic performance of the kids eating school lunches. Because those kids are overwhelmingly poor and are academically vulnerable ANYWAY, you've now tossed yet another roadblock in their way. There's an old saying about brimstone roads and good intentions that applies here.

The academic performance of the child has to come FIRST, above ALL OTHER considerations. That means feeding the kids food that they'll actually eat, so they aren't going back to class hungry. A kid who eats a nutritionally questionable lunch and goes back to class full can concentrate and learn for the rest of the day. A kid who is handed a nutritionally healthy but "yucky" lunch is going to eat little to none of it, will go back to class hungry, and will be tired and easily distracted for the remainder of the day, learning little. Which kid is REALLY better off?

For what it's worth, my wife is an elementary teacher and volunteers with a program that is teaching low income mothers how to cook healthy foods on a budget. If you really want to tackle the obesity epidemic, programs like THAT will help. The healthiest school lunch in the world isn't going to fight off obesity if they're getting sugary cereals and McDonalds at home. A "nutritionally questionable" lunch isn't going to hurt anything, if it's being fed to a kid who is eating healthy elsewhere. There seems to be a push from some quarters to force "healthy" meals on schools to counter their parents bad feeding habits, but that is NEVER going to work. Kids simply consume more of their calories off-campus than they do on-campus.

[WatsonT]

19. My point was

that kids won't voluntarily be hungry for too long.

Yes they might resist at first and few kids might go hungry for a day or two. But once they realize they have limited options they will eat what is in front of them.

No doubt the kids would be happiest with candy bars, chips, and coke. But we don't give them those things in place of real food because it would be irresponsible.

And getting a third of your meals from an unhealthy source does make a big difference.

I'm not trying to cure obesity with this, but why add to it when we can avoid it?

Besides which: pasta, rice, beans, etc are all a lot cheaper than pizza, chips, chicken nuggets, etc.

[groundloop]

10. If they don't pay up they get PBJ and milk for lunch...

My wife's a lunch lady - if a child at her school owes more than 5 dollars they get 2 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and a carton of milk for lunch, that seems reasonable. It's not starving the child, and it's relatively inexpensive.

[OnlinePoker]

12. Never had school lunches when I grew up.

My mother was single with 4 kids, barely minimum wage with a small amount of child support and she always managed to get something edible in a brown paper bag for us. I can see providing lunches for impoverished families, but 86% of the population can't be classified as this. It's time parents take back their responsiblities and fill their own kids dietary needs instead of expecting schools to do it.

[Xithras]

15. My kids schools have a simple way to handle it.

You get two unpaid lunches. If you "forget" your money again, you get a plain white milk and a choice between PB&J or bologna sandwiches. It also triggers an automated call to the house informing the parents that their child has now reached the limit.

The kid doesn't go hungry, and the parents eventually get tired of the annoying phone calls.

My kids generally take their lunches to school, but they've gone into the lunchroom when there was something good on the menu that they wanted instead (usually on pizza day). If they do it twice, we get a phone call.

The school also prints outstanding lunchroom balances on the report cards, so the parents can't miss it.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. If 86% of students qualify for free lunch it's a good bet that all would qualify for reduced lunch

and that those who are supposed to pay full price have parents who didn't submit the paperwork.
This isn't a school in a high income area. Even the article suggests that the problem may be more about failure to apply than unwillingness to pay.

There's also the possibility that some of the parents aren't paying because they think their kids aren't eating at school.

Maybe the notice of lunch money due should include an eligibility form translated in the dominant languages of the school.

[On the Road]

21. They Should Have Known What Happens

when you give food to this guy: