http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/05/public-school-dinners-pantries/70389176/

how is this possible in America in 2015?

Many people have misplaced priorities. I'd venture to say most of the parents of those kids could pay to feed their kids if they didn't spend their money on themselves.

The government needs to make sure everyone eats 3 michelle obama approved meals per day.

Mama's a crack whore that won't get out of bed long enough to make her kids breakfast.

Drugs, alcohol, and indifference. Parents have to have priorities, and besides, if they don't take care of their children, tax payers will find a way to make up for their failure as parents.

I used to tutor remedial math to middle-school kids who were mostly low-income and black. I quit when it became obvious to all that they really didn't care and weren't willing to put enough effort into their work.

Or so it seems to me.

My wife provides some sort of food for a student a fair bit more than once a month.
As an aside, you should see what some parents consider "lunch" for their kids.. A soda or juice and a bag of Cheetos is pretty common.

even when my son was in the second grade right about 2000... his teacher was in her 60s, and could have retired, but she worked basically to keep giving to kids..

she spent 50 to 60% of her pay check on her students..her husband was well off, so she didn't need the job nor the money...

an example tho, is she would be purchasing lunches for kids..and school supplies... while their parents would occasionally pick them up from school instead of them riding the bus...

and pick them up in a BMW or some spendy deluxed out Pickup with the big lift, tires, rims etc...

and the types were usually dopers, welfare abusers and with the money they seemed to have, either were collecting under multiple identities, or were dealing...

we had one kid like that in the Cub Scout troop, and this kid started to run out in front of a speeding car on the rural road the church we met was off of... I grabbed him before he got hit by the car...

his dad/uncle came running up and knocked me down... and instead of realizing I'd just saved the kid from getting hit was yelling at me to never ever touch his son, or he'd beat the hell out of my ass...

quite evident he was strung out and high on meth at the time...
as the kid's mother was half the time.... yet she drove a 300 Z Nissan.. but had no job...

turned out also, the kid's parents were brother and sister, along with being welfare abusers, meth users.. and his dad/uncle, had a jail record for that stuff that wouldn't quit...

Some people in our society can really be screwed up... and it only exists because our society tolerates it, and enables it all to go on...

Liberalism marches on...

Sad to think there are that many kids that are hungry,I'm sure it's attributed to poor parenting,inner city, immigrants etc.
I know of teachers buying supplies to help out kids,didn't realize that schools provided 3 meals a day.
Kudos to the teachers,time for the parents to step up,
or is it to late?

It's the result of a welfare state that pays people who have no business being parents to spit out kids. Have more kids, get more money.

It doesn't matter how much welfare money or food stamps you give these people, it won't go to the kids.

Back when I was still teaching, I had a young man wear the same grubby Tshirt and shorts to school every day for 2 months. Having 4 sons, I had tons of real top quality hand me downs for him. I talked to the school nurse, and gave the "goods" to her so I would not be involved. She made sure he got the 2 huge bags of coats, jeans, dress shirts, sweats, etc. Come the following week, the kid shows up wearing his old grubby duds. Talked to the nurse and it seems "Mom" sold all the donated goods for drug $$$. So very sad. He wore his stuff well into the winter. Just saw in the paper the other date that he, now 25, got nailed for meth manufacturing. And so it is with apples.

its gotta be the damn teachers unions...

If the kids are getting 'free' meals at school, they should feed them well then deduct that amount every month from the parent's benefits.

When my kids were young, they would come home with playmates from the socialized housing complex down the street. One time, I sent them home to go get lunch, and they just looked at me with a blank stare and said "there's no food at our house".

So I just sighed and made a couple more sammiches. I figure one should not hold the sins of the parents against the children.

I should that I knew a good many aides, cafeteria workers and even janitors who came to the assistance of kids in need, most doing so without any notice. One of the older aides, Ann, was just wonderful and probably gave lunch $$ to tons of kids when needed. Syracuse schools north of me even has a free lunch program all summer when school is out to feed kids. HHmmmm....if you can't care for your kids, why did you have them???

+100

As someone said, I don't think there are any more 'poor' people today than when I was a kid 40 years ago. Just more self absorbed people that don't give a shiet.

Understood, but others shouldn't be expected to be accountable for those sins. Because we are the trend will continue with no end in sight.

i just puked in my mouth, but i agree with you.

just more ways to get "more "free stuff

Two of the biggest problems rolled into one, Amen.

Where I work you should see the amount of moms at the park with their faces buried in their Damn phones instead of paying attention to kids......f**king despicable!

I grew up poor, but I didn't know it. I lacked lots of stuff, but didn't know it. What I didn't lack was 3 squares a day and a lot of my dad's time and love.

Kids don't need anything more than that.

I buy a box of Raimen noodles every other week.

I also pack a big lunch with extras.

I do that just to spite Michelle Obama.

Doesn,t look like Michelle Obama has missed any meals !!

On minimum wage income or slightly above it, it's pretty hard to indulge spending on yourself. My daughter teaches in an elementary school in affluent Colorado in which 43% of the kids get free lunches.

Maybe true in some cases, but a rather simplistic explanation of many cases.

Same with folks that can't pay the power bills to us on time or at all.

They drive in, in a somewhat older caddy, with new paint, and those new damn hubs that stick out like cutters, with 22s or whatever they are that cost more than big mud grips would on my F350, smoking a cig, talking on an iphone.

Yeah, nope you don't get an extension and I don't care how cold or hot its gonna get.

As to not holding the parents sins againts the kids, yes I get that, but as Scott noted, somewhere it has to stop. When it does its gonna be a bit ugly, but its past time to stop it and tighten the ropes a LOT.

If we'd quit paying em to have as many kids as they could and clipped every last one of them would be a heck of s tart.

In the wild populations have cycles... we are at a high, I can only hope in one way that we fall to a low soon.

I think most of you guys hit the nail on the head....parents are using up the benefits before feeding kids. That said- and I know I'll catch hell for this- I defy you to find me a truly hungry child in America.
Its the battle cry of the liberals " What about the children?" In the past few years Ive seen two shows put on by the liberal press about hungry children in America. Show #1 literally couldn't find any, Show #2 found some they thought were hungry in appalachia, but the kids, to an individual, were well clothed and fat....

If the parent is working two jobs, doesn't own a car, doesn't own a cell phone, doesn't have cable tv then I'm all for the school providing lunches for the kids.

If however the parent has tatoos, cigarettes, beer, drives a car, has a cell phone, cable tv etc and junior isn't getting three squares, then the government has already done too much to help.

I have no doubt a small percentage of the population needs all the help it can get, but a large percentage of the "poor" are that way because of poor choices they make. There is a big difference between can't work, and won't work.

When you don't work , you have plenty of time to [bleep].

"There is a big difference between can't work, and won't work."

Agree that there is a percentage who works hard (but might be unemployed from time-to-time) bur falls on hard times.

And our society encourages and subsidizes that....

Those are the ones that welfare was supposed to help. However, for the vast majority of those drawing welfare today it's become a lifestyle, not a safety net to help them back on their feet.

I live in Mississippi, the epicenter of the welfare lifestyle, I see it every day. I'm not being facetious when I say I cannot remember the last time I saw a "person of color" purchase groceries without using an EBT card. I really can't remember seeing that happen.

This, after 50 years of the War on Poverty?

Sad state of affairs but due in large part to a welfare state that rewards women having multiple children out of wedlock, the breakdown of the traditional family, and the largesse of government entitlement programs.

Pretty pathetic testament to left wing policies.Keep electing those democrats and we are guaranteed more and more of this.Any problem the federal Government seeks to remedy only insures that we are going to have more and more of the same problem.

The article, of course, is just a way to drum up sympathy as we picture thousands of kids starving without the intervention of Big Brother to keep them fed.

Pathetic.Let the parents get a damned job. Nobody fed my kids except me.

My wife teaches High School. She has a food drawer that always has inexpensive microwavable food in it. Every few days a student will come in and not have anything for lunch -- Not because they can't afford it - because they forget to bring it.

Statistics are just statistics. Some kids have crappy parents. But kids will also be kids.

My own 8th grader forgot his lunch the other day. He had to scavenge from his buddies. Lesson learned.

They (liberals) want us to believe this is where we are today.






This is where we are

You might be amazed at how many homeless parents have cell phones, cigarettes, and other non-essentials. They choose to not deny themselves, and will often use their kids as an excuse to get help. trouble is they won't use the "help" on their kids after they get it. For whatever reason, it's difficult for some to get beyond themselves.

Ingwe. In my public accounting days I use to audit school lunch programs in Appalachia. I would work in the lunch rooms and watch as the kids came thru. To a school there were basically 3 groups of kinds.
1 Kids like ours they were cleaned up , had decent clothes and would eat but selectively pick the good stuff and leav e the rest
2 Kids that were a little less affluent wearing maybe hand me downs but their moms had at least cleaned them up and combed their hair. This group generally cleaned their plate but would be a little selective.
3 these were the kids that were raised by wolves. Same dirty clothes every day and would eat everything plus whatever their friends would share. If it was pickle beets and spaghetti didn't matter they were just hungry.

I was also bible school bus driver for the church. We would go to the subsidized housing developments and pickup. A lot of those kids were hungry . It got to the point I convinced the minister to feed the kids as soon as they got there and I also approached the area ministerial assoc. and convinced them to try and coordinate their bible schools so that they wouldn't overlap. That way the kids could go to bible school about 6 wks each summer and get fed.

True. These kids get sent to public schools where they get "dumbed" down even more. They often become part of the "entitled" group, and end up draining the system because it's all that is modeled in front of them. ..a perpetual cycle. This is all part of the plan and why Zero got in office. ..keep dumbing people down....make them dependent upon the govt....take away the rights of the people....take away freedom of religion..

Interesting.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-03-31/pdf/2015-07358.pdf

"INCOME ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES
[Effective from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016)
48 Contiguous States, District of Columbia, Guam and Territories"

Family of four, max gross income of $44,863 to qualify for reduced priced meals.

(That's $21.58 per hr @40 hr week)

Family of four, max gross income of $31,525 to qualify for free meals.

(That's $15.18 per hr @ 40 hr week)

http://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/income-eligibility-guidelines

I retired in 2010 after 30 years of teaching, some observations. Schools are segregated now, not necessarily by race, but by wealth. Parents with money send kids to private schools. Public schools are increasingly becoming the place where only the poor send their kids.

When I graduated HS in 1976 we had a mix of both poor and well to do kids. I know a lot here really push private or home schooling. Done right, I have no objections, but it is rarely done right in my experience.

I don't believe the private schools provide any better education, they just get the better kids, and parents. I've never seen any one home schooled that ever prospered. Bright kids in public schools who want to learn do just as well on testing as those in the best private schools. It is the large number of kids who don't care that pull the overall average scores down in public schools.

Georgia is ranked near the bottom in standardized testing, Connecticut near the top. But kids who rank in the top 10% in GA score just as well as the top 10% from Connecticut. It is the other 90% that make the difference.

Lots of parents don't give a damn. I coached and saw lots of great kids who had parents who never once came to a game. I can't imagine a parent doing that. At the last home game of the season every year each senior and their parents are introduced and walk onto the field to be recognized. Every single year we had a coach walk with at least one kid because the parents didn't care enough to come.

I've worked with "needy" kids.
The parents have figured out along time ago that if junior never shows up with money or "can't afford" to pay for a camp someone or some charity will.
Junior wants to participate and usually genuinely wants to go, so they learn to "play along" on the poverty trip real quick.
Free uniforms, treats, supplies, awards, trips, food, theme parks....Yada, Yada.

Color doesn't matter either.

Many churches have backpack ministries that involve placing easily (by children) preparable food items in a regular school pack and sending it home with them on the weekends otherwise some of those kids likely won't eat much of anything over the weekend. Child hunger is also the the reason behind some of the push for year round school.

Mike

Good on you for that! It's not the childs fault.

Thank you

Mike

I understand and agree but I bet there aren't many days your child doesn't have a few greenbacks in his pocket either.

Mike

If kids are coming to school hungry, isn't that child abuse? Seems to me that feeding them although necessary, isn't getting to the root of the problem. Should society deal with this differently or not? I know that children typically love their parents in spite of their shortcomings? I don't have the answer.

X2. Spot on

Leave the store with a buggy full to hop in a new car with rims.

Not to mention the latest iPhone.

Your story is in sync with Robert Putnam's new book, "Our Kids, The American Dream in Crisis". Putnam's research shows that segregation is now much more by economic class, than by race. That neighborhoods and school are increasingly segregated by economic class, rather than by race, so there is a synergy of positives in the higher economic class and of negatives in the lower economic class. He goes farther to claim that the incarceration of so many lower economic class men for non-violent drug related offenses may cause more damage to their children than any other single factor.

reading this entire thread just has to make ya cry....

I am sure a lot of us see this and think it has to be unique to where we live...

sad thing proven on this thread... its every where... no matter where ya go...

our country truly has lost its way and has lost out to liberalism...

no wonder SambObama got elected TWICE....

You should read this article by a teacher who tried to teach at a poor inner city school. He found that the vast majority of the black students placed no value on an education. They were planning to live off of welfare and crime. The only solution for this disaster is to end all welfare for able bodied people so they are forced to find jobs. And the federal government should implement 3 strikes and your out nationwide to permanently remove felons from society.

ESSAY BY A TEACHER IN A BLACK HIGH SCHOOL

I had a kid I was tutoring ask me why I drove such a crappy car and then told me that his brother, a drop-out drug dealer, paid more for the wheels on his 2013 Escalade than my 2005 Aviator was worth. This was from a kid who was wearing $200 sneakers and getting subsidized meals. Why would he care about getting an education when his role model was probably making $100K working part-time? Prison, drugs, and gang were all normal components of their live. When he was caught with marijuana and suspended from school, he and his mother were both shocked that drug possession was a problem, 'cause it was only a little weed and everybody smokes a little weed to help with the stress of everyday life, right?

This is because of the "social safety net" not in spite of it.

This is what happens when you allow Govt to take over charity.

Ditto. I though I was rich until I went to college, then was led to believe I was poor. Now I realize that I was right the first time.

Conditions should improve as thousands of illegal immigrant
children enter the school systems next fall.

You are an Ass Bear!

Truth be told most teachers keep food in their rooms for the kids who come to school hungry. It is not a teachers job to ask why not just to make sure the kid has something to eat. Everyone who chooses to teach will find a kid or 2 per year who comes from a really bad home and will help that kid out.

Thank goodness for teachers, non political for the most part, just helping out where needed.

Our area has free breakfast and lunch for those who can't pay.

In this area you have to qualify for the free lunch, but breakfast is free for all students regardless of income.

A. S., I thought that was pretty much a nationwide thing and imposed during the baby Bush admin as a part of No Child Left Behind.

I could be wrong on that, though.

I will just say that after 39 years in education as a teacher, coach and administrator I probably doled out $10,000 or more for students. It hurts me when people attack the teaching profession and lump them all together as worthless enemies. powdr

This is it.

Here the school system encourages kids to apply for free lunch, because the government reimburses the system more per free lunch than the price of the meal. What amazed me was that often the kids on free lunch had the most spending money. I did have some needy kids who rarely or never had spending money. I would often create a little job for them to do and then buy them snacks at afternoon break.

The local churches here, mine included, all under the umbrella of the cumberland baptist association participate in the FUEL program. A second offering basket comes around- that money buys healthy snacks and it's bagged up to get identified kids through a weekend until they can get back to school. The school has the lists and the kids get their backpack provisions discreetly on Fridays before the bus ride home.

It's all fully funded by local churches, and the schools in our area fully support it.

Regardless of the politics or associations involved. I have no idea if other denominations contribute.

It's not just the free lunch. They get money for additional programs based on the number that qualify for the free lunches. The more poor kids in a school, the more "free" federal money they get.

There's a lot of reasons, including fraud and corruption within the school districts.

Our district last year had the woman that was in charge of the cafeterias and food programs assets, stealing on average of $2,200 per day, four out of every five day's she worked, for some 12 years.

Due to Statute of Limitations, they could only stick her with the funds stolen within the last 3 years, if I remember right it was 1.5 million out of some 4 million she was thought to have walked away with.


Phil

that's a lot of funds to go unchecked for so long.

Yep, and though they say unrelated, District is not allowed to discuss the non renewal of contracts for quite a few employees if I remember right, including the District Supervisor and his aid.

A lot going on in that district over the last couple years.

Phil

In the Northwest Arctic Borough School District 100% of the students are on free breakfast and lunches, if they (or their parents) choose to partake. Lots of fat kids, too. And lots of kids who don't get food at home.... One student told the cook he had to eat those two meals a day at school because his family was starting to save to buy a house. Hey- I can kinda applaud that! Shows some initiative and financial planning (depending on what ELSE they are doing with their money).

As noted above about parents....... there are even several millionaires in Kotzebue, whose kids partake of the free feedings. It's just so much easier administratively to go 100% than filter out the ones who wouldn't really qualify, so I don't quibble about that.

However, there seems to be plenty of drug and booze money in town, $ for flying to Anchorage for a few days, , $30,000 "subsistence" boats, $8,000 ATVs, $10,000 high performance snowmachines, etc....

I no longer have a kid in school, and am riding a 20 year old Bravo and 10 year old Honda 4-wheeler.... I have a boat in my living room ("Rubber-Ducky"), but need a motor....

When my wife was teaching in the classroom, she was spending up to $2,000 a year on classroom supplies, lunches and clothes for needy students, etc. and that was down on the Kenai peninsula - civilized country! When we were still supporting our own kids.

Now that she is a highly paid Central Office Administrator (Special Services) up here....I don't want to know! I do know I haul a helluva bunch of Pampers, formula, cheap holiday presents, candies, etc. per order back from Anchorage almost every trip, none of which we use! Some is re-imbursed, but.... I NEVER look at her credit card statement... and she pays the bills. Makes most of the money too, so .... Pphhhbbtt!

I agree completely - Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em!

What's that sig-line about chicklets and teeth????

If you teach lower income and you AIN'T continually out-of-pocket for the kids you teach then you ain't normal.

JMHO

Would you please post before I waste all that time/

Wait, What, you go to church?

The reason that these kids are hungry is that their parents are using their welfare to buy drugs and other stuff for themselves.

seems to be the general response,although a very sad one ..

I don't believe for a minute it's the welfare kids going hungry around here. Every damn time I go to the grocery store I get behind somebody with their cart heaped to overflowing and they invariably pull out an EBT card. The folks that work for a living usually have a couple bags worth or less. I heard a report on the radio on my way to work one morning that a single mother of three is eligible for 80,000 dollars worth of benefits a year here. Meanwhile the median personal income in this County is 23,000 per year for women and 27,000 for men. Nope, I ain't buyin' it that it's the welfare kids going hungry. Not for one damn minute.