its just a way for the school to squeeze some more money into their pockets
It’s not even necessarily that, it’s usually just that the entire funding structure for the school doesn’t allow them to re-allocate city/state funds to paying for lunches, and even if they did have excess funds they could switch over, it would then result in key programs needed for kids to graduate being cut, because they’re so underfunded as is.
This is coming from someone who actively managed my prior high school’s yearly budget, and had numerous instances of district officials willfully ignoring emails and calls until being contacted by a higher-up dispute resolution office because they, in the end, didn’t have the resources to even stop serving illegally prepared (undercooked, not meeting nutritious standards, still frozen, etc) food.
That was even with nearly every student paying for lunch out of their own pocket. Our entire model for funding schools in this country is a disgrace from top to bottom.
It’s not even necessarily that, it’s usually just that the entire funding structure for the school doesn’t allow them to re-allocate city/state funds to paying for lunches, and even if they did have excess funds they could switch over, it would then result in key programs needed for kids to graduate being cut, because they’re so underfunded as is.
This is coming from someone who actively managed my prior high school’s yearly budget, and had numerous instances of district officials willfully ignoring emails and calls until being contacted by a higher-up dispute resolution office because they, in the end, didn’t have the resources to even stop serving illegally prepared (undercooked, not meeting nutritious standards, still frozen, etc) food.
That was even with nearly every student paying for lunch out of their own pocket. Our entire model for funding schools in this country is a disgrace from top to bottom.