How do kids qualify for free or reduced lunch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the recent past, families at my school self reported. Believe me, no one wants school lunch. It's gross. Also, no one wants teachers and office staff to know they are poor. In the last year though, my district did away with any income verification. Any kid who wants breakfast or lunch can have it, free of charge. This change happened because older kids were beginning to put together "they are poor" with the kids who don't pay each day. Our state didn't want kids avoiding ordering lunch because they didn't want to be seen as poor. No kid wants to be the poor kid. Some will go hungry to avoid that stigma. Especially, if they are in a district like mine with a wide income spread. We have families of 6 living on less than 20K a year and then we have families of 3 living on 100K. That's a big difference.

What state is this? Here all kids have an identical lunch card. No one can tell whether the parent put money in the kid's account or if they are getting reduced lunch. I find it highly surprising that your state hasn't thought of this.

Of course you understand that not every parent has access to a credit card or the internet, and therefore has no way to put money into an "account". I'm in a state west of DC.

In our district, it doesn't matter how the money gets into an account - via my credit card and the computer account or via cash sent into the office. No money changes hands at lunch time. All of the kids type in their student number and get lunch. None of the kids have any way of knowing if the account is loaded by their parents, by qualifying for free lunch, or if the account is overdrawn.
It seems like a system that works well, and I'm really surprised all districts don't do this at this point. Even those "west of DC"

[Anonymous]

How many people are going to try to scam the system for what would amount to $10-$15 a week?

Lots of people do worse for less.

Occasionally people get busted who are prominent enough to get themselves mentioned by the Voice of Bezos, like this former school board member and GAO employee:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/former-md-education-official-to-be-sentenced-in-free-school-lunch-fraud-case/2016/04/28/3767bcd0-0d52-11e6-a6b6-2e6de3695b0e_story.html

[Anonymous]

I don’t know what the office does or doesn’t do to verify but Dc government has my current income and tax info and has had it for last 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Baltimore City schools give all children free lunch because there were so many that it wasn’t worth the paperwork to sift out the few who didn’t need it. No verification, and I’m fine with that.

[Anonymous]

This is very cynical, but I expect the next frontier will be well-off families applying for FARMS because it gives them a significant leg up in admission to magnet schools (which it does in MoCo).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very cynical, but I expect the next frontier will be well-off families applying for FARMS because it gives them a significant leg up in admission to magnet schools (which it does in MoCo).

My guess is they'd probably audit it for the few FARMS applications to the magnets. But.. it's MCPS and they tend to mess a lot of things up.. so maybe not.

Well-off families would have an easier time having their child self-identify as a race that is not heavily represented in the magnet programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are random audits that require verification.

And if they are audited, and found not to qualify, what happens? Nothing. They just don't get free lunch. There's no deterant in stopping someone with the inclination to lie from doing so.

There might be some immigration repercussions, I am guessing.
I know since trump took office, the number of families applying in our district declined. I don’t know if they abused it before or just don’t want to face any kind of scrutiny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very cynical, but I expect the next frontier will be well-off families applying for FARMS because it gives them a significant leg up in admission to magnet schools (which it does in MoCo).

I am actually thinking of leaving the workforce for a year or two and live on child/spousal and cash jobs to apply. I might re-evaluate in 6-7 years of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fwiw, the vast majority of people are honest.

OP here. I believe that as well and obviously the schools that have the largest number of farm families are located in low income areas, so presumably many of them are being truthful, but I guess I find it rather hard to believe that this all operates on the honor system, and there is no attempt to determine whether the family’s income is as low as what they self report.

The danger of kids going hungry because of difficulties with verification paperwork is much greater than a few kids getting a free lunch unnecessarily.

That's also why some schools have community eligibility.

This comment is the correct one

Get a life OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very cynical, but I expect the next frontier will be well-off families applying for FARMS because it gives them a significant leg up in admission to magnet schools (which it does in MoCo).

My guess is they'd probably audit it for the few FARMS applications to the magnets. But.. it's MCPS and they tend to mess a lot of things up.. so maybe not.

Well-off families would have an easier time having their child self-identify as a race that is not heavily represented in the magnet programs.

It’s already impacting how half-white, half-Asian families self identify for college, but MCPS doesn’t look at race for magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the recent past, families at my school self reported. Believe me, no one wants school lunch. It's gross. Also, no one wants teachers and office staff to know they are poor. In the last year though, my district did away with any income verification. Any kid who wants breakfast or lunch can have it, free of charge. This change happened because older kids were beginning to put together "they are poor" with the kids who don't pay each day. Our state didn't want kids avoiding ordering lunch because they didn't want to be seen as poor. No kid wants to be the poor kid. Some will go hungry to avoid that stigma. Especially, if they are in a district like mine with a wide income spread. We have families of 6 living on less than 20K a year and then we have families of 3 living on 100K. That's a big difference.

[guardian]


In middle school/high school most kids buy lunch from school. My two MS kids buy because they are too lazy to pack their lunches, and they so that most of the other kids at their middle class school buy as well.

I have five kids over the age of 17. None of them ever wanted to eat nasty school lunches. Especially not in middle or high school. I don’t know any kid who willingly eats that stuff. I packed their lunches every day - kindergarten through their senior years in high school.

[Anonymous]

I thought kids don’t actually pay for school lunches but give the cashier account number. Do free lunch kids do something different?

[Anonymous]

My mom didn’t want to put us on free lunch because she was a libertarian who fancied herself self-sufficient. So I ate buttered noodles or crackers or a donut for lunch every day. When she finally let us get on free lunch life was heaven and the food wasnt even very good. If would have been amazing if they had just given every kid free lunch.

[Anonymous]

School counselor here and just as often it's hard to get parents to complete the paperwork when they do qualify. Let's just agree to feed the kids, no questions asked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correct. Income on the form is self reported and is not verified.

That is insane. I kind of like the idea of everyone getting free lunch. At least that way, you aren't penalized for not being a scammer.