Community Chat

[Maudelynn]

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@sunshine45 wrote:

Your child(ren) may qualify for free or reduced price meals if your household income falls at or below the limits on this chart.

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Imagine that?  Those lousy parents owning homes, taking vacations AND getting subsidized lunches for their kids!  All on $863 a week for a family of 4!  The unmitigated gall.

[eddyandme]

I don't believe in "free" lunches.  People on Welfare get monies for groceries, etc.  And, for those not being subsidized, there are food banks.  They can always make sure their children have a healthy lunch.  There is no shame in bringing one's lunch to school, work, whatever.  Seems like the free lunch program attracts those too lazy to make a lunch for their child and/or those who think they can scam the system. 

[LoveShoes]

When my son was going to public school, they would tell the parents to lie about your income so that the school would get more federal funding. The administrators told us the less income you put on the application the more money the school gets.  So it is not always as black and white and it seems.

[JillyMarie]

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@eddyandme wrote:

I don't believe in "free" lunches.  People on Welfare get monies for groceries, etc.  And, for those not being subsidized, there are food banks.  They can always make sure their children have a healthy lunch.  There is no shame in bringing one's lunch to school, work, whatever.  Seems like the free lunch program attracts those too lazy to make a lunch for their child and/or those who think they can scam the system. 

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Does your belief encompass all parents and their children in America? 

[RazorSharp]

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@eddyandme wrote:

I don't believe in "free" lunches.  People on Welfare get monies for groceries, etc.  And, for those not being subsidized, there are food banks.  They can always make sure their children have a healthy lunch.  There is no shame in bringing one's lunch to school, work, whatever.  Seems like the free lunch program attracts those too lazy to make a lunch for their child and/or those who think they can scam the system. 

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@eddyandme Then, why should the schools provide lunch?  By your estimation, all the parents have the time and ability to pack a lunch for kids, right?

[Maudelynn]

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@LoveShoes wrote:

When my son was going to public school, they would tell the parents to lie about your income so that the school would get more federal funding. The administrators told us the less income you put on the application the more money the school gets.  So it is not always as black and white and it seems.

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So when your son was in public school, you applied for free lunch and you were told to lie about your income?

That's fraud.  I would have reported it.  Did you?

[Isobel Archer]

Oh OK it's Federal money - then of course it's free money and we are fools if we don't take advantage of it.

I mean it's not as if any of us are really paying for it.

And it certainly doesn't take away from any other Federal payouts - since those are all free as well.

And the point anyway is that it doesn't matter if the parents can/should provide lunches for their kids.  If they don't want to - that's what the government is for after all.

So interesting that that same philosophy doesn't apply when teachers are complaining about parents not stepping up to helping kids with their homework etc.  How many times do we hear teachers complaining about how they can't teach kids whose parents don't care/help/discipline/etc./etc? 

So when a child fails in the classroom - it's the parent's fault - certainly not the government teacher's - but when a parent fails to provide lunch - it's the government's responsibility????

So essentially we are saying that if parents are irresponsible, we send kids to school - not expecting them to actually learn, but simply to be give them free food????  For which we can then pat ourselves on the back about how caring we are???

How did we get to this place?

[eddyandme]

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@RazorSharp wrote:

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@eddyandme wrote:

I don't believe in "free" lunches.  People on Welfare get monies for groceries, etc.  And, for those not being subsidized, there are food banks.  They can always make sure their children have a healthy lunch.  There is no shame in bringing one's lunch to school, work, whatever.  Seems like the free lunch program attracts those too lazy to make a lunch for their child and/or those who think they can scam the system. 

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@eddyandme Then, why should the schools provide lunch?  By your estimation, all the parents have the time and ability to pack a lunch for kids, right?

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@RazorSharp

Right.  It's called handling your responsibilities.

[Mmsfoxxie]

@sunshine45, yes, that is part of the lunch form alright.  But if the applicant has one those cards like SNAP, etc, they automatically get free lunch.  This was one of my duties before I retired.  Those that had to put their earning on the form most of the time put earning on there that would aloow them to have either free lunch, reduced lunch or had to pay.  According to what was put filled in by the parent, I had to either check the box F,R, or D...free, reduced or denied.  None of the information had to be verified.  If the chilld was foster or homeless, it was automatcally free also.

Btw, since the free lunch program helped the school get more funding from the state, the more free lunches the more money the school got and the principal is happy with that.

I never had a problem with this program.  The program with the most abuse is the Homeless Program that offers free bus passes to the child and sometimes the parent.  The parent sometimes DROVE to school to pick up the bus passes. IMAGINE!  Other freebies are attached to it as well.  This is great if you're really homeless but not all of them are.  School personnel does not have the authority to question a person who says they are homeless.

[LoveShoes]

No, I did not report it.  Was not for me to do so. It's free  for children, so at least the students will get breakfast and lunch.