“LUNCH” or “MONEY”
If a child
can’t afford
a hot lunch--
(or any lunch at all)
Swift cold cheese
an animal or a smiley face,
a stamp
that says
“MONEY” or “LUNCH”
Succeed
Look forward
Students
who reach the
cash register
without
would be given milk
Sometime before Christmas
the board will address
the issue
When a child’s balance
goes in the red
we
keep courtesy meals
to three
Never
any complaints
Food
"I know
"I know
we have a process in
place"
If a child can’t afford a hot school lunch, the
state of Minnesota should pick up the tab, Gov. Mark Dayton said.
More than half the school districts
in Minnesota deny a hot lunch — or any
lunch at all — to students with no money in their school lunch accounts.
That’s likely to change, after swift
and fierce public backlash to a report by Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid that found
schools throwing lunches in the trash, feeding students alternative lunches of cold cheese or butter sandwiches, or
sending them home with “LUNCH” or “MONEY” reminders stamped on the backs of
their hands. "It's a stigmatizing practice," Webster contends.
"Some districts think that when they stamp a kid with an animal or a smiley face, it's a reminder to parents -- but when
you get a stamp that says money or
lunch, it's embarrassing."
“No child in Minnesota should be
denied a healthy lunch,” Dayton said in a statement issued Tuesday from the
Mayo Clinic, where he is recovering from hip surgery. “We cannot expect our
students to succeed on an empty
stomach. I look forward to working
with the Legislature to make this issue a priority in the upcoming legislative
session.”
Dayton pledged to include $3.5
million in his supplemental budget request “to ensure that no Minnesota student
is denied access to a hot meal at lunchtime.” Legislative leaders, who return
to session at the end of the month, have similarly vowed to make lunch funding
a priority.
School districts were doing damage
control as well.
Anoka County’s St. Francis School
District immediately suspended its practice of pulling hot food trays from
students in the lunch line
when they can’t pay.
“I understand people are very upset.
I don’t blame them. Our board is, too,” interim St. Francis Superintendent Troy
Ferguson said. “I will try to look at this as an opportunity to make a positive
change.”
The policy was rarely enforced, he
said, and applied only to those high schoolers who were not part of the
reduced-price lunch program. Students
who reached the cash register without enough money would be given a chance to ask their friends for a loan. If they
still couldn’t come up with the money, their tray would be pulled and the
student would be given milk and
either a piece of fruit or a vegetable for lunch. This happens maybe six times
a year, Ferguson said, with the last incident occurring sometime before Christmas.
That practice stops today, he said. The board will address the issue at its
next meeting.
Policy misinterpreted?
Osseo’s schools, the largest of the
46 districts that immediately or eventually cut off lunches to students with
deficits in their lunch accounts, said its policy was misinterpreted.
When a child’s account balance goes in the red, the school provides an alternate lunch, consisting of a
sandwich, fruit and milk for at least the next three days, district spokeswoman
Barb Olson said.
“We want to reassure people we do
not deny children lunch,” said Olson, who could not explain why students were
given an alternative to a hot lunch. “We
aim to keep courtesy meals to three. When students exceed those numbers, we
engage in problems solving.”
With more than 21,000 students,
Osseo is the fifth-largest district in the state. Osseo school board Chairwoman
Teresa Lunt said the board likely will review its practices but said she had never heard any complaints or any reports of children going without lunch until
the report came out.
“Certainly I don’t personally
believe withholding food from children is the right thing to do,” Lunt said. “I know we have a process in place.”
About 62,000 low-income children and
teens take part in Minnesota’s reduced-price lunch program, paying 40 cents for
a hot, nutritious lunch, with the remainder of the cost covered by public
funds. It would cost an estimated $3.5 million to expand the state’s free lunch
program to all of them.
Several bills at the Legislature
last session called for such an expansion, but most weren’t backed by necessary
funding. Passage would have meant an unfunded mandate, to be paid for by
schools.
Late in the session, House
Republicans worked to include funding for school lunches in the massive
education budget bill. They would have covered the cost by defunding several
DFL initiatives, including the new school antibullying “climate centers.” That
measure failed.
“It disappoints me that House
Democrats chose special interests and partisan politics over children,”
amendment sponsor Rep. Joe McDonald, R-Delano, said in a statement Tuesday. “I
offered an amendment last year on the House floor that would have provided
funding to ensure low-income children are not turned away from the lunch table
for lack of payment. My amendment would have utilized funding from more
bureaucracy — including a new climate
center — to help ensure our students don’t go without a school lunch.
Unfortunately, Democrats stood on the side of spending more taxpayer dollars in
a government agency instead of taking the opportunity to support our
children.”
Finding the money for school lunches
should be much easier this year. The state is likely to have a $1 billion
surplus for the rest of the budget cycle. Sen. Jeff Hayden, DFL-Minneapolis, said he will sponsor the bill in the
Senate.
House Speaker Paul Thissen,
DFL-Minneapolis, said funding school lunches will be “a very big priority. We’re
going to include it in our budget.” Of students being denied lunch by their
school, he said, “It just seems wrong.”
Staff writers Baird Helgeson and
Steve Brandt contributed to this report. jennifer.brooks@startribune.com •
651-925-5049
