Some kids get free lunch.
Food also gets more expensive for those that do pay.
My sister's school lunch when from 2.50 to 3.50 in the last couple of years. All the while, the school's been getting a lot more money.
It's paid for by us taxpayers, but is otherwise free? You wrote that without even seeing the irony, didn't you? It's NOT free...the cost is just shifted to someone else. You misusing the word "free" doesn't remove its cost.
My school has a thing that if you're in lunch debt for $1.50 or more, then all you can get for lunch is a ham sandwich and a small water bottle. I'm pretty sure that ain't enough nutrients, and only two food groups.
Yes, but if we're missing ONE dollar. ONE DOLLAR, we get two slices of bread, a slimy piece of ham, and water. That's all. I'd rather have PBJ and peanut butter crackers + juice.
Schools have budgets that must be followed. Inmates are wards of the state and not in a comparable situation. Students are there for 6-8 hours a day and their families can send food with them. Those that can prove financial hardship (and bother to fill out the paperwork) can get free or cheap meals for their students. Schools are not charities. Some schools offer no lunch program at all, every student must bring food from home or get no lunch.
I think this is one of the best things our taxes can go to (feeding kids at schools). It would be nice to get more funding for that, because school lunches are nasty
I used to get small burgers, belgian waffle sticks, grilled cheese, the "classic" works. They were small portions but definitely enough for me to get through the day happily. Maybe because I took everyone else's food because they threw most of it away. I remember once I got about four meal's worth of food from my table because everyone was throwing their burgers away for some reason.
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· 7 years ago
People are impressionable so even of they don't particularly dislike something they'll throw it away if they see other people throw it away
Which is a damn shame. Wasting food should be a minor crime.
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· 7 years ago
My old high school the lunch ladies would let people have seconds whenever they had leftover pizza and one time they had so many leftover they literally gave out boxes of them to people, I swear I ate like 6 of them which in retrospect was a bad idea cause that day my advisory had a pizza party and ordered Papa Johns so I could only fit like one more slice
My private school has great food... if you want to pay $4 for lunch every day for food from the hired cooks. It's like eating out but you're gambling on the amount and quality of the food
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Edited 7 years ago
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· 7 years ago
"Lunch debt" is what happens when your parents don't give you lunch money (or alternatively, put it on your school account) and the school gives you a bunch of free lunches anyways, even though your parents should have paid for it.
It's not, never has been, to punish the kids. It's the only thing that will wake up the parents who won't pay for their kids' food.
The problem with this is that there's no way to snap at the parents without the kid being collateral.
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· 7 years ago
It's a last resort, really.
Most schools have already sent 5+ emails/letters home with the students and made 5+ calls to the parents.
Not the kids' fault, but they often get caught in the middle of their parents' bad choices.
#1 benefit of going to school in Sweden: the unlimited, home cooked, nutritious, TOTALLY FREE meals. From the day you start kindergarten until you graduate high school. Not every school cooks the meals themselves (2/3 of my schools have though), but it's always proper food. They have to work with good ingredients towards all food groups, AND accomodate all allergies and dietary choices. All for free. I'll happily pay 'high' taxes for the rest of my life if children get to have that.
In Sweden every instance of rape counts as a separate report. A man raped his wife every day for a year? That's 365 reported cases. No wonder that we stand out in the statistics - we take a different approach to the problem.
Also, the immigrants were never the real problem. The problem is that while the politicians are arguing over what to do with them, they sit for months in refugee shelters with nothing to do, are given no promises of security and no chance at integration into the Swedish society.
If you had seen these people, if you would meet them daily out on the streets the way I do, you'd know we don't feel fear of being raped or harmed. We feel shame and want to apologize for not being able to give them more of the safeties we enjoy.
(That said, there ARE rough neighbourhoods here, and a lot of immigrants live in those. I don't, however, so I can't tell you exactly what they're like. Also, I do take this very seriously. Sweden continues to be one of the safest countries in the world, and the recent fuss about us is a prime example showing that you should always go straight to the source. Most of us feel safe. Most of us want to have, or at least don't mind having, the immigrants here.)
On the first day if secondary school, my teacher paid my lunch for me and asked to pay him back. It was only £4 but I was 11 and had no money to my name. Anyway I never paid him back cos he never remembered to ask me.
Where I live they give the elementary and middle school students a pb and j sandwich with white milk even if they're over, but at the high school if you're a certain amount in debt (I think it's like $7 or so) they won't give you any food. It happened to me a few times when I was a freshman
Food also gets more expensive for those that do pay.
My sister's school lunch when from 2.50 to 3.50 in the last couple of years. All the while, the school's been getting a lot more money.
It's not, never has been, to punish the kids. It's the only thing that will wake up the parents who won't pay for their kids' food.
Most schools have already sent 5+ emails/letters home with the students and made 5+ calls to the parents.
Not the kids' fault, but they often get caught in the middle of their parents' bad choices.
If you had seen these people, if you would meet them daily out on the streets the way I do, you'd know we don't feel fear of being raped or harmed. We feel shame and want to apologize for not being able to give them more of the safeties we enjoy.