ypsiteacher

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 : 3:40 p.m.

At the elementary level, kids pay $2.00 for lunch. The high school kids pay slightly more than that, but have additional choices that they can choose from that add to the cost they pay. In general, the lunches are of very poor quality and taste. I can't tell you how many days my class has come back from lunch still hungry. Most kids eat a few bites, and then are unable to finish because it's disgusting. This is not a case of a kid being picky when it's more than half of the class. I end up having to feed them afternoon snacks out of my own pocket just so they can focus on learning instead of hunger. Most kids (over 60%) in each of Ypsi's public schools receive free or reduced lunches based on their family's income level. Those families depend on school lunches. Most families simply cannot afford to make a homemade lunch for the $.40 the reduced fee kids pay. The school lunches are served by an outside company called Chartwells. They are a for-profit company. It's no surprise that they want to squeeze more money from kids who already cannot afford to be hungry after being served a "balanced and nutritional school lunch". It's not a balanced or nutritional meal for the students unless it gets eaten.

Ron Granger

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 : 3:11 p.m.

Why even bother reporting the story if you can't include the price of a lunch? Is that not an obviously important basic fact? It'd be interesting to know the percentage of kids in that school system that participate in the lunch program, how many of them are subsidized, etc. But that'd be real work. In 9th grade we learned the 6 W's of journalism that should be answered in any news story - who, what, where, when, why, and how.

jjc155

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 : 11:05 a.m.

I can count on one hand the number of times I bought lunch at school during the 70's and 80's (K-12) while I was growing up. My mom always packed a nutritous lunch that was appropriately sized (not to much food/not to little food). That "value" that was instilled in me is now being passed on to my children in that they get a home packed lunch for school every day. And before anyone says the inevitable that "parents today are just to busy to be packing lunch and it is just more convinient to have their kids buy lunch" my mom was a single mother who worked essentially 2 full time jobs to put food on the table and a roof over our heads WITHOUT any .gov assistance. If she could do it, ANYONE can.

Ignatz

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 : 10:32 a.m.

I hope nobody is surprised. Cost of product goes up, so it's get passed on to the consumer.

Moonmaiden

Sat, Aug 20, 2011 : 1:20 a.m.

You can always send a lunch to school with your child . . .

Charles

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 : 11:50 p.m.

I don't understand why, the quality of food isn't going up. Although it may be true that Aramark (or whoever) is raising prices for what my kids call "prison food" (and they're right, these companies make food for prisons too), the school district could just threaten to bring in real cooks again.

1bigbud

Fri, Aug 19, 2011 : 9:54 p.m.

Wait Detroit gets free Lunch with snacks to take home Do want to be the same as The D Pay nothing and get the same Pay the 25 to 50 cents The lunch lady needs the money for a new razor