"The counselor and Principal worked closely with the cafeteria staff to watch for patterns of a family that should apply for free/reduced lunch, children who were being neglected, or even kids just taking advantage or being repeatedly careless."

Ideally this would be the way it works, but it appears that the cafeteria manager and staff are unwilling to cooperate for some reason (and aren't being made to do so, for reasons I don't understand), and everybody else is "too busy" to be involved. This is why the PTA got involved to begin with, I believe.
I have always found it interesting that while the cafeteria staff doesn't have the time to identify students who have a problem in this area, if a particular student is being discussed when one of them is around they can always tell you, "Oh, he never has his money", or "She always has her money, so I knew something was wrong".

This seems like a school/district/cafeteria issue and not one the PTO/PTA should even be involved in. What is the district policy and how are other schools in your area dealing with it?

At our school, this is completely handled by the cafeteria staff, with the Principal involved if needed. (Same process, a kid gets a PB sandwich and milk if they forgot their lunch - but the sandwiches are made as needed.)

A couple years ago, a concerned PTO officer brought up the possibility of the PTO supplementing this so that the child also got fruit.

Apparently the whole thing was opening a can of worms and the Principal diplomatically disuaded the PTO from moving forward. He explained it was a delicate situation best left in their hands. They wanted the child to avoid being hungry, but not to have the replacement lunch be too attractive so as to encourage people taking advantage.

The counselor and Principal worked closely with the cafeteria staff to watch for patterns of a family that should apply for free/reduced lunch, children who were being neglected, or even kids just taking advantage or being repeatedly careless.

It seemed like they had considered all the angles and were dealing with it on a case by case basis, so we bowed out.

P.S. I'd argue against the week-old sandwich. That's just silly.

[ 10-01-2004, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]

Hi! I'm hoping to get some ideas re an ongoing problem in our school with how to help kids who come to school without their lunch money for whatever reason.
In the past the PTA has contributed a certain amount each month for this problem, while the cafeteria has provided peanut butter sandwiches to the rest (in a rather arbitrary way IMO-it seemed some kids automatically got PB, even if there was money in the account, while others never got it, but I could be wrong).
From what I understand the sandwiches are made on Mondays and refrigerated, so if you forget your money on a Friday you're pretty much eating a brick,lol. I raised the issue of how dangerous peanut allergies are but no one seems overly concerned about it, and it would be the school's liability so I didn't push it, although I still they are being foolish.
Anyway, the cafeteria manager has always held that the sandwiches are good enough because kids (or their parents) would be likely to take advantage if they knew PTA would take up the slack. PTA has in the past said that possibility didn't outweigh their responsibility to help the kids, but they did try to hold the cost to around $25 a month. (Lunches are $1 at our school.)
However this year the PTA has decided people ARE taking advantage and that they will only cover the cost for the first few months. I don't know the details because I'm not even on the board this year, but people still act as if I am. [img]smile.gif[/img]
We are a Title One school with a wide variety of ethinicities, and I know there has been discussion before that if the students who abuse the program were identified and their parents contacted we might find that they simply couldn't understand the forms they needed to fill out for reduced lunch, or couldn't read them or just didn't care, all of which would then alert the school that there was a problem. If the parent did understand, then the child might be using the money for something else or a bully might be taking it or whatever, and that also would need to be addressed.
The problem boils down to a few things: It's costing too much money, although I don't know how much it's jumped since last year, the cafeteria manager is unwilling to generate a report that would identify the people who are repeatedly not bringing money for lunch, and even if the PTA had the report no one has the time to contact the parents, nor are they sure they even should be doing it.
I'm looking to see if other schools have had this problem too, and what has been the solution. Thanks!