Badtux the Snarky PenguinJun 20, 2023

At the rural school district I last worked at, we had 1500 students, of whom 1,000 were free lunch and 500 were not. The cost of personnel (an entire department!), computers, and software for vetting students to make sure those 500 didn't get free lunch cost more than the cost of simply feeding them, already.

The GOP jihad about preventing those 500 from getting free lunch is not about taxes or expense, it's about being mean to children. #gop #antichild #school #lunch #meanness

Show threadobscurestar
@badtux They've always been awful. In 80s Okla. public school we filed out of class. stood in line for the lunch room (no talking) went through this very long line around the cafeteria to the wash station. Only THEN did the sack-lunch kids break off (still in order) to their table at the back. Free lunches went to the tables nearest them. After lunch period, dismissed row by row (if you ate it all) but free and sack lunches were last out, robbing them of 10min playground time for being poor.
Jun 20, 2023 at 6:42pmWeb
Show threadBadtux the Snarky PenguinJun 20, 2023
@obscurestar We definitely didn't do poverty shaming like that in our district. Billing parents for lunches was done separately from processing kids for lunchs so it was impossible to tell who was free lunch vs paid lunch at the lunch line, each student ID got scanned into the lunch computer and billed to the appropriate place on the back end (Feds, or parent account). That software and the process of billing parents was *not* cheap BTW.
Show threadobscurestarJun 20, 2023
@badtux Yeah. This was late 70s early 80s in Oklahoma (a long time right-wing stronghold) public school run like a christian military school and the shaming felt pretty intentional. I was a sack-lunch kid so I was always back of the cafeteria, last to be let to go play even when my class was first in the cafeteria seating chart (which was a weekly rotation through the home rooms) No talking allowed in the lunch room of course so the poors just got shamed/punished.
Show threadBadtux the Snarky PenguinJun 20, 2023
@obscurestar No talking in the lunch room? WTF?! That was insane! Even Catholic school wasn't that bad, and I say that as a survivor of several years of Catholic school!