Our tax dollars at work. Lovely, just effing lovely.
Bingo.
My mother was elected to the local school board some years ago. After she found out how much money state and federal governments ponied up for each eligible kid (rural conservative Catholic farm country, peeps - four and five and eight kids in a family still isn’t all that uncommon) she kept kicking herself for never signing us up for free/reduced lunches.
She and I had a couple of brainstorming sessions, trying to figure out how to talk people who were eligible into signing up. Forcing people to sign up, though? I don’t think so.
Schools are afraid of lawsuits. A lot. Call up your superintendent’s office and tell them that your attorney can’t find the statute which requires you to provide personal financial data in order for your child to attend school, and could the school’s legal representative please provide the information to you. Today. Yes, you will hold.
Every year since my kids started kindergarten we’ve gotten the form to apply for reduced/subsidized something. In grade school it was milk, since there was no lunch program at the school. Now in high school, it’s lunches. But we’ve never had to fill it in, or even return it. In fact, at the high school they send it out with the registration materials and I promptly put it in the recycling bin. On registration day you turn it in if you have it, and if you don’t you skip that part of the process and move on. It’s never been suggested that we should apply just to be counted. I wonder if our schools are missing something?
And as far as the embarrassment factor is concerned, nobody pays attention to who turns in a form at registration, and the kids use their ID cards to pay for lunch, so nobody can tell there.
I’d bet they would back down on the suspension thing pretty quickly if you called them on it. That information doesn’t have anything to do with the student, so they shouldn’t be able to punish him for it.
[continuing hijack]
It could be worse. I went to private school until I graduated. When I went to apply for college, they refused me admittance unless I got a GED. I blame my parents for not checking the school’s accreditation.
[/end hijack]
UPDATE
I just got my form from my son’s school today. This year there was a letter attached. Apparently, the School and Libraries Corporation, part of the federal government , provides funding to public and private schools and libraries across the nation to wire classrooms and provide internet access. The school is required to document the number of students who meet the eligibility requirements. The form was clearly designed by my child’s school- but it’s a private school which doesn’t offer lunch. Perhaps the eligibility requirements are the same as the requirements for free lunch, and public schools are simply using the same form for both purposes.
As part of middle management in the Texas public school cafeteria system, I can say with some confidence that as a conservative Republican I am a freakin’ hypocrite for having this job. Don’t get me wrong; I love what I do. I’m helping feed the future, but the government regulators seem to want as many people on public assistance as possible. We are required to audit only 10% of families who are approved for meal assistance. The only other time we are allowed to audit an approved applicant is if he or she is accused directly by another of misrepresenting information contained in the application. So…if you lie on your application then you have a 10% chance of getting caught, unless there is someone out there who has it out for you, and then you will suffer no punishment beyond being made to pay the appropriate meal price from that day forward. If you put down on your application that you make $0.00 (no money from a job, no money from family or friends, no money from charity, no money from government assistance…no money from anything or anyone and you live without the need to receive money of any kind), then you are to fill out a new application each month telling us if your situation has changed. If you still say you make no money, you kids eat free as long as you continue to come in each month to fill out another application.
Schools get government commodity food assistance based on the amount of approved free/reduced meal applications. School districts get government financial assistance based on the number approved free or reduced meal applications. School foodservice operations get extra reimbursements if individual schools have a sufficient percentage of their school population approved for free or reduced meals so as to be classified as “severe need”. I am unaware of districts getting assistance based on the number of applications received although it is to the District’s benefit to have every family submit a free/reduced form as many families that qulaify do not see a financial need to apply. So…its big business. The more students you get to qualify for free/reduced meals the more government assistance you get.
Most of the laws speak to the illegality of the District fudging the numbers, not to individuals defrauding the system (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/regulations/7cfrpart210.pdf). I have never heard of an individual being made criminally liable for defrauding the system via a fraudulent free/reduced application. As a cynical Republican, it seems to me that certain entities seem to want to encourage individuals to become dependant, and maintain their dependence, on the government.
P.S. Could this reply be considered a hijack or did I actually hit a few points that mipiace brought up?
