4 ms·

Just give up. If the day were shorter, students could make it through the day without eating. The loss of hours can be partially compensated by changing the sc

by burfog 10y ago

Just give up. If the day were shorter, students could make it through the day without eating. The loss of hours can be partially compensated by changing the school year from 180 days to 240 days. The time would be better-used because long hours make people tired of thinking, and because long vacations cause students to forget. (the long summer sets students back by at least a month) Shorter days would even save money on buildings, because there could be an extra shift, with students going to school at different times. Lunch causes huge logistics problems for schools. People all want to eat at the same time. That means the facility has to accommodate a large portion of the school. The better schools might pay for a cafeteria that holds everybody, which is wasteful. The crummy schools will have 4 or more shifts, meaning that some people eat "lunch" soon after they arrive and others eat it right before they go home. There usually isn't much time to eat; it can be 20 minutes for a fast-growing teen or inefficient first grader. You'll never get people to agree on a tolerable lunch. Some people won't eat this, and some people won't eat that, and spending the money to deliver a decent experience is just not going to happen, and all of that conflicts with obsolete-when-written nutritional mandates. Nobody is washing hands. If they were, they wouldn't be able to keep their hands clean due to doorknobs and chairs and so on. Disease spreads during lunch; this causes real harm. Nobody is brushing teeth, but some students have braces. Enough is enough. School lunch is a disaster and we aren't going to fix it. We should just admit that.

joshontheweb 10y ago
I think that this point of view ignores the fact that a big under acknowledged purpose for public school is daycare. The school day needs to be long enough to give the parents time to go to work. Not sure what the solution is here but I don't think shortening the day will work due to this.
- rexpop 10y ago
  End the long work day. Higher pay, fewer hours.
  - joshontheweb 10y ago
    I can get behind this!
rtpg 10y ago
School lunch is not really a problem for many countries in the world. Turns out that in order to feed kids we need to contribute a bit more than $2 a meal, but if we were actually interested in solving the problem we could invest in it and just give all the kids free lunches, just like how we give them free classes. This would have the added benefit of helping out poorer families who might not have the time/money to always give their children the highest quality food.
applecrazy 10y ago
One thing you forgot to consider is why the school lunch program is in place at all. It's for those kids from poorer backgrounds who might not receive a meal that day if it wasn't for this program.
- burfog 10y ago
  What about days without school? It sounds like the poor kids just go hungry. Summer vacation means no food. What about the kids from families with higher standards? They are being forced to go hungry, eat garbage served by the school, or eat a lunch that is neither refrigerated nor heated. School lunch is a terrible way to feed the poor. If we're going to do that, provide old-style food stamps or just have the postal service drop off food. Do it for everybody who doesn't opt out.
  - actualproblem 10y ago
    > What about days without school? It sounds like the poor kids just go hungry. Summer vacation means no food. Yeah, this is actually a problem. Which is why the Summer Food Service Program exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Food_Service_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Food_Service_Program Unfortunately, kids living in places with a local government unwilling to jump to offer this program (which is reimbursed by the federal government) don't have the opportunity. There are a lot of places in America where local government is incompetent and/or sadistic. (See also: Medicaid expansion.) > What about the kids from families with higher standards? They are being forced to go hungry, eat garbage served by the school, or eat a lunch that is neither refrigerated nor heated. Oh noes! Unrefrigerated, unheated lunches! How can a human possibly survive?! Tip: if you need your lunch at a thermal gradient to the ambient, try an icepack and insulated bag and/or a thermos. > School lunch is a terrible way to feed the poor. If we're going to do that, provide old-style food stamps or just have the postal service drop off food. Do it for everybody who doesn't opt out. There are lots of problems with school lunches. Even as a grade school kid in the 80's, I knew there was something deeply wrong with being served lunch from a steam tray in front of a kitchen that never appeared to be actually used - my school building dated from a time when lunch was actually prepared on site from scratch, but by the time i was in school almost everything was coming from a box out of the deep freeze. However, interrupt the current program without replacement nutrition in place and you're going to disrupt the lives and educations of millions. Hungry kids don't learn well (or behave in a way conducive to others around them learning.) PS - I now live in Holland and my kids' school serves no lunch. They have to bring their own - unrefrigerated, un-heated. They manage. ( look wistfully at the school lunches served in France, and think the system here says a lot about Dutch food culture or lack thereof.) But poverty here is nothing like what I left behind in the US.

by burfog 10y ago

joshontheweb 10y ago

I think that this point of view ignores the fact that a big under acknowledged purpose for public school is daycare. The school day needs to be long enough to give the parents time to go to work. Not sure what the solution is here but I don't think shortening the day will work due to this.

rexpop 10y ago
End the long work day. Higher pay, fewer hours.
- joshontheweb 10y ago
  I can get behind this!

rtpg 10y ago

School lunch is not really a problem for many countries in the world. Turns out that in order to feed kids we need to contribute a bit more than $2 a meal, but if we were actually interested in solving the problem we could invest in it and just give all the kids free lunches, just like how we give them free classes. This would have the added benefit of helping out poorer families who might not have the time/money to always give their children the highest quality food.

applecrazy 10y ago

One thing you forgot to consider is why the school lunch program is in place at all. It's for those kids from poorer backgrounds who might not receive a meal that day if it wasn't for this program.

burfog 10y ago
What about days without school? It sounds like the poor kids just go hungry. Summer vacation means no food. What about the kids from families with higher standards? They are being forced to go hungry, eat garbage served by the school, or eat a lunch that is neither refrigerated nor heated. School lunch is a terrible way to feed the poor. If we're going to do that, provide old-style food stamps or just have the postal service drop off food. Do it for everybody who doesn't opt out.
- actualproblem 10y ago
  > What about days without school? It sounds like the poor kids just go hungry. Summer vacation means no food. Yeah, this is actually a problem. Which is why the Summer Food Service Program exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Food_Service_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Food_Service_Program Unfortunately, kids living in places with a local government unwilling to jump to offer this program (which is reimbursed by the federal government) don't have the opportunity. There are a lot of places in America where local government is incompetent and/or sadistic. (See also: Medicaid expansion.) > What about the kids from families with higher standards? They are being forced to go hungry, eat garbage served by the school, or eat a lunch that is neither refrigerated nor heated. Oh noes! Unrefrigerated, unheated lunches! How can a human possibly survive?! Tip: if you need your lunch at a thermal gradient to the ambient, try an icepack and insulated bag and/or a thermos. > School lunch is a terrible way to feed the poor. If we're going to do that, provide old-style food stamps or just have the postal service drop off food. Do it for everybody who doesn't opt out. There are lots of problems with school lunches. Even as a grade school kid in the 80's, I knew there was something deeply wrong with being served lunch from a steam tray in front of a kitchen that never appeared to be actually used - my school building dated from a time when lunch was actually prepared on site from scratch, but by the time i was in school almost everything was coming from a box out of the deep freeze. However, interrupt the current program without replacement nutrition in place and you're going to disrupt the lives and educations of millions. Hungry kids don't learn well (or behave in a way conducive to others around them learning.) PS - I now live in Holland and my kids' school serves no lunch. They have to bring their own - unrefrigerated, un-heated. They manage. ( look wistfully at the school lunches served in France, and think the system here says a lot about Dutch food culture or lack thereof.) But poverty here is nothing like what I left behind in the US.