Anonymous wrote:What kind of country can’t even do the basics of feeding children? I 100% support this. It was great for so many reasons in the year after COVID. Whether a busy family working two jobs just needs a break from packing lunch or a kid is in financial need. We have a share table at our school as well which has been great. Kids drop the packaged items they don’t want and someone else always eats it.

What kind of parents refuse to do the basics of feeding the children they choose to bring into the world?

We are the richest county in the country.

Everyone has expensive smart phones and pay for frivolous entertainment apps which would more than cover lunches for their own children. The highways are full of $30,000+ fancy new cars.

I am not talking about lunches for poor kids which is already free and which needs to be made into better quality food selections as others have stated.

But feeding your child is one of the most basic responsibilities of parents. There is not a single middle to wealthy FCPS parent that cannot feed their own children and feed them well. They either are prioritizing frivolous things over the basic needs of their child, or too focused on frivolous things to take 10 minutes out of their day to pack a basic healthy lunch for their kids.

TLDR.

The quality of the food could use improvement.

Anonymous wrote:This is emblematic of what society has become. A three tiered system.

The accumulating class - a small group of people who have sufficient wealth to just sit around and watch their wealth continue to grow, sure they pay taxes but not enough to keep everything going.

The supporting class - an ever shrinking middle class who mostly stay above water and whose taxes keep everything going.

The mooch class - those who rely on the tax dollars of the other two classes to do nothing but still have a better standard of living than most of the people around the world. An ever growing segment of the population not at all interested in a hand up but want a perpetual hand out.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody, in this case the supporting class, primarily, is buying that free lunch.

So the hungry 3rd graders are the mooch class? We're talking about school lunch, Not iphones and cigarettes.

Zero. My kids refuse to eat it. Ive had the same $50 on their accounts for years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The free covid lunches were soooooo terrible

It was literally the same food.

No it wanted. Mushy deli sandwiches made the day earlier, not the same.

Teacher here- It was absolutely not the same food. None of it was warm. It was all served stone cold, think frozen chicken fingers, chicken sandiwches and pretzels. It was worse than prison food. Inedible and all wasted, then the kids would be famished.

Maybe your school did things differently than ours, but my kids got hot food.

Not the PP, but we also primarily got cold food during COVID. Lots of deli sandwiches and lukewarm chicken strips once a week.

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Anonymous wrote:Free Lunch for all but better food would be ideal. Also, free lunch isnt allergy friendly and 1 in 13 kids have a food allergy. Because most of it is premade or processed, they can't confirm ingredients and there is risk of cross contamination. There are also not Halal or Kosher meals.

This is America, go back to your own country if you want special foods.

What are you talking about? PP is American. The FCPS menu does in fact have Halal and Kosher meals since they offer something vegetarian every day.

Anonymous wrote:Free Lunch for all but better food would be ideal. Also, free lunch isnt allergy friendly and 1 in 13 kids have a food allergy. Because most of it is premade or processed, they can't confirm ingredients and there is risk of cross contamination. There are also not Halal or Kosher meals.

This should just be called the fake forum instead of the FCPS forum. People just come on here and say completely untrue things They claim to be teachers. They claim into have eaten the lunch. They claim all sorts of things. Here is the menu and it’s very clear about Kosher and Halal. Enough bashing the school food for not being French cuisine. Hungry kids eat it and my students eat it and they take extra from the share table. https://www.fcps.edu/system/files?file=forms/2025-11/fns-es-lunch-menu.pdf

Anonymous wrote:Free Lunch for all but better food would be ideal. Also, free lunch isnt allergy friendly and 1 in 13 kids have a food allergy. Because most of it is premade or processed, they can't confirm ingredients and there is risk of cross contamination. There are also not Halal or Kosher meals.

This is America, go back to your own country if you want special foods.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The free covid lunches were soooooo terrible

It was literally the same food.

No it wanted. Mushy deli sandwiches made the day earlier, not the same.

Teacher here- It was absolutely not the same food. None of it was warm. It was all served stone cold, think frozen chicken fingers, chicken sandiwches and pretzels. It was worse than prison food. Inedible and all wasted, then the kids would be famished.

That is not true. That was the year both my kids started getting lunches more at school because they were free and it was easier for us. It was never served “stone cold.” There were never “frozen chicken fingers.”

DP ES teacher)
They were room temp chicken fingers. I’m sure they had been warmed and were basically room temp, not frozen when the kids got them. They also had sandwiches like turkey and American cheese on a bun. They weren’t “stone cold” and I wouldn’t say it was “inedible”. That’s an exaggeration. They were fairly simple though. This was spring of 2021. After that, we went back to the normal cafeteria line in the fall.

The salad bar we used to have a few years ago was pretty good. It would be nice to have that back. I’d also say that they have improved with some of the lunches this year and last.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The free covid lunches were soooooo terrible

It was literally the same food.

No it wanted. Mushy deli sandwiches made the day earlier, not the same.

Teacher here- It was absolutely not the same food. None of it was warm. It was all served stone cold, think frozen chicken fingers, chicken sandiwches and pretzels. It was worse than prison food. Inedible and all wasted, then the kids would be famished.

Maybe your school did things differently than ours, but my kids got hot food.

Anonymous wrote:There are plenty of people who can afford it. I would focus on those who don't and make sure that kids are fed healthy tasty meals. NHS advises 24g sugar/day for children aged 7 to 10, WHO talks about 35-42 g a day for elementary age range. FCPS: breakfast: Maple Belgian Waffle 15g + Juice 13g, lunch: Yogurt pack 16g, fat free chocolate milk 20g. There are better options, but those are also on the table every single day.

Your numbers aren't accurate, because you're quoting total sugar, and not added sugar, which is what the NHS and WHO recommendations are for.

I taught years ago where most of the kids were free lunch. We had wonderful food--that system had each school prepare it. The cookies were to die for.
But, even so, kids ate what they liked. The veggies--which were good--usually went untouched. This was back when teachers did not have duty free lunch, so I saw what they ate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The free covid lunches were soooooo terrible

It was literally the same food.

No it wanted. Mushy deli sandwiches made the day earlier, not the same.

Teacher here- It was absolutely not the same food. None of it was warm. It was all served stone cold, think frozen chicken fingers, chicken sandiwches and pretzels. It was worse than prison food. Inedible and all wasted, then the kids would be famished.

That is not true. That was the year both my kids started getting lunches more at school because they were free and it was easier for us. It was never served “stone cold.” There were never “frozen chicken fingers.”

Anonymous wrote:Free Lunch for all but better food would be ideal. Also, free lunch isnt allergy friendly and 1 in 13 kids have a food allergy. Because most of it is premade or processed, they can't confirm ingredients and there is risk of cross contamination. There are also not Halal or Kosher meals.

This. I’d rather the school spend on decent food and charge parents a nominal lunch fee, which is how I’ve seen it done in European schools where i *would* have eaten the food.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The free covid lunches were soooooo terrible

It was literally the same food.

No it wanted. Mushy deli sandwiches made the day earlier, not the same.

Teacher here- It was absolutely not the same food. None of it was warm. It was all served stone cold, think frozen chicken fingers, chicken sandiwches and pretzels. It was worse than prison food. Inedible and all wasted, then the kids would be famished.