EAG: YONKERS, N.Y. – Patricia Meyer, food services director for Yonkers schools, describes the district’s problem with unpaid student lunch tabs as “a runaway train.”
Yonkers students racked up $809,000 in unpaid meals last school year, and this year’s debt is 22 percent higher, she told The Journal News.
“I liken it to a runaway train,” she said, adding that each unpaid lunch costs Yonkers taxpayers 97 cents. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep covering 97 cents when that number of students aren’t filling out the paperwork and bringing their money.” MORE
Charge the parents with child neglect.
So what will be done about the eatings from Yonkers?
STFU. School needs to eat it. No pun intended.
No quarter or leniency for the so-called, “school.” School’s (admin’s) fault, straight up, clear and simple. So cut student programs/services to fund the loss of a free lunch program.
Run the school like a business: Payment due at the time of services. In God we trust, all other pay cash.
why is the public school system even in the food service industry
VietVet, clever.
They need to form a committee, then hire at least four experts, pay them millions of dollars to figure out they need to hire 100 social workers to fill out the paperwork for the kids’ parents. But, there are probably 18 year old 10th graders who might be able to fill out their own papers with a special needs counselor../s
@BigGun and @Anonymous,
I Agree, why is the school in the food service industry? But they were and now they need to either collect or pay. And going forward, set up contracts that take the school out of food service. It’s obviously a big loser of a program. Make parents contract directly with a third-party food vendor. There ya go town council and Board of Ed in Yonkers! We are smarter than your elected asses.
And one more thing, based on history the food vendor will make parents pay ahead into debit accounts for food purchased. And the kids won’t be using lunch money to make other purchases.
Typical progressives. Create the problem by being too scared to refuse lunch to the deadbeats, bill the parents when you know they won’t pay, and keep repeating, month after month. But what the hell, it’s not their money, right? Here’s a plan: pay back the district taxpayers out of the pensions of the district administrators ! That should spur them into a policy change.
@Meerkat Brzezinski: I understand what you’re saying, but it is very simple.
For me in the 60’s going to school, there was always a school lunch, but it wasn’t referred to as, “A Program.” You bought your ticket (we tease now but, in Kindergarten you had your ‘milk money’ pinned to your shirt), presented your ticket, you received a lunch. No tickey, no raundry, no milk money/no milk/no lunch.
It ain’t… that… hard. “Oh but we can’t let them go hungry.” I went hungry many times when I forgot to take my money. Mom and Dad didn’t give me additional lunch allowance on the next day, I took what I didn’t spend the day before.
Kind’a funny how real life experiences teach better than a classroom. If it ain’t in my wallet, guess I can’t afford it.
This is why socialism won’t work and never will work. Deadbeats not pulling their weight.
BigGun, Exactly, it’s not like they were going to let you starve to death. They were just helping you improve your memory.
@Big Gun, actually I remember my milk money days from the 70’s! I would buy 20 tickets for $5. That would get me through a month of milk! Also my parents would gave me $2 to buy lunch.
My children have an online payment system where they have a code number that they enter at checkout. We fund their account online. And we can see what they are spending everyday.
I use to take the weaker kids milk and save the money. That’s how I bought my first 1911.
@Bad_Brad, exackery. If I forgot my lunch money, Mom and Dad couldn’t afford to kick in extra. Most times, it was brown baggin’ it from home. A school lunch from the “lunch lady” was really a treat.
Although to this day, I do miss Moms’ peanut butter and our farm bees’ safflower honey sandwiches (with a little honeycomb). 🙂
In Yonkers it’s called losing control. They have lost control.
Kid says I ain’t got no money, what the fuck you gonna do about it bitch?
But, mark my words. Sometime in the near future, under the Trump Administration, some dindu nuffin is going to be refused a hamburger because he owes for twenty three meals, Then the shit hits the fan. ABC,CBS,NBC, the local Channel 12, and others will be on the case be on it like flys on Hillary. Big news. “Young hungry child at Yonkers School refused food.” “New rules under the Trump Administration causing children to starve.” “More at five, tune in for full interview with blah, blah, blah.”
It’s a fucking joke!
Greetings from Yonkers, where the hell are you? We need you.
I tired very early on of “Hamburger Surprize” and my Dad always conjured up great lunches for me, BLT’s, Ham & Egg, Salami and Egg, etc..
Again, why my kid is in private
school. And you know what? The food is
GOOD!
how much of that $800k went in the lunch room workers pockets?
I went home for lunch.
Didn’t cost tax payers anything. No paperwork either.
My mom made my lunch, then when I was older *I* made my lunch. Why can’t parents, BE parents?
This is precisely the point of stupid, wasteful, useless, expensive gov’t programs: Fill a need that doesn’t exist to assuage the feelings of maggots, who are only pretending to have feelings, while fleecing the somnambulant taxpayers and rewarding the sycophants, cronies, and families of said maggots (and the maggots, themselves, of course).
And, as a “bonus,” the “l’il chillens” come to believe that the “state” provides all their needs, not their parents. A WIN-WIN for socialists and other assorted enemies of Freedom and Liberty.
izlamo delenda est …
If the problem is mostly paperwork then the answer is kind of easy. At tax time when the parent files they’ll claim the little rascals as dependents to get the deduction but if they are in the Yonkers (or any other) school district where free lunches are provided (and growing up poor as a church mouse I sure would have appreciated that) part of that deduction is taken away. If your child is enrolled in private school then thanks for the donation bub. Then, turn the feeding process over to a private company for fulfillment. Make sure that there are checks and balances in the system to ensure the kids aren’t getting ratmeat ravioli and re-negotiate with the company every three years for the contract. Don’t let Michelle Obama clones clutter up the contract with a bunch of progressive crap, just make sure it’s healthy, a decent size and tastes good.