Michelle Obama’s signature school lunch program has been unpopular since it first went into effect, two years ago, with students eschewing the “worse-tasting, smaller-sized and higher-priced” fare, and instead bringing their own “back alley meals”, as Rush joked – meals like “Flaming Hot Cheetos and soda.”
“We’re eating more junk food, now, than last year”, a student from the Los Angeles Unified School District explained in December of 2011.
Last year, Kansas teachers and students frustrated with the school lunch guidelines, produced a protest video to illustrate their plight:
Now school districts are starting to dump the expensive and unpopular program in favor of something more cost effective that kids will actually eat.
Kyle Olson of EAG News reports:
Officials in New York’s Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake school district have become the latest to opt out of the National School Lunch Program, citing “hungry, frustrated children plus lost income.”“[Food service manager Nicky] Boehm and her staff worked hard to implement the new regulations, but there were just too many problems and too many foods that students did not like and would not purchase. Students complained of being hungry with these lunches and the district lost money. I’m confident we can do better on our own next year,” assistant superintendent Chris Abdoo said in a news release.The lunch program lost about $100,000 for the school year, which is roughly the cost of one teaching position.
Another school district in Illinois recently made the same decision, and more will likely follow.