Della Curry was fired from her kitchen position for giving school
children free meals, raising questions about the availability of free or
low-cost school lunches.
Della Curry is out of work, and unashamed, after being
fired by the Cherry Creek School District. A married
mother of two, Curry is the former kitchen manager at
Dakota Valley Elementary School in Aurora, Colo. She
lost her job on Friday after giving school lunches to
students who didn’t have lunch money.
What do you do when a child doesn’t qualify for free or
reduced lunch, but doesn’t have enough money to pay for a meal
at school?
Della Curry, an elementary school kitchen manager at Dakota
Valley Elementary School in Aurora, Colo., opted to give such
children free lunches. Her decision was a violation of school
policy and she was fired.
“I had a first grader in front of me, crying, because she
doesn’t have enough money for lunch. Yes, I gave her lunch,”
Curry said.
Curry
told KCNC-TV in Denver, Colo. that she hopes her dismissal
will bring about much-needed change in her school district. “If
me getting fired for it is one way that we can try to change
this, I’ll take it in a heartbeat.”
Students at Dakota Valley are allowed to charge up to $8 on their
meal account if they forget to bring money, according to
the
district’s website. Once they have used up their $8 allowance,
however, they may no longer charge lunch.
The Cherry Creek School District has issued a statement
explaining that: "The law does not require the school district to
provide the meal to children who have forgotten their lunch money,
that is a district decision. According to our practice, we provide
hot meals to students the first three times they forget their lunch
money and charge their parents' accounts. The fourth time, we
provide a cheese sandwich and milk."
The District notes that the school lunches are already
subsidized, and any additional losses have to be covered by the
district's general fund, which is also used to cover the cost of
security, instruction, and building maintenance, among other things.
What bothers some, however – Curry included – is that the cheese
sandwich provided is just a slice of cheese on a hamburger bun.
CBS News
posted the story on Facebook and many readers expressed their
concern in the comment section.
“A slice of cheese on a hamburger bun? Oh man! That should fill
them up for the rest of the day?!” said one.
"It's 2015. There should be no transaction of any kind that the
student or staff has to participate in. Putting aside the absurdity
of making students pay for lunch in the first place, it can be
simply charged to an account that the parents are billed for," wrote
another in the comment section of the story.
"Honestly I think this is the first case where I would agree that
it made sense for the school to follow protocol. I mean it was very
noble, and it was nice. But I can't help but think this is equating
to stealing," wrote another.
For many, the issue boils down to ensuring that children are not
going hungry in school.
It's an issue that continues to be debated nation-wide. Solutions
have been proposed, but some are still in their early stages.
As The Christian Science Monitor reported, Maryland recently
enacted a law that allows schools to take part in the
Community Eligibility Program (CEP).
Through this program, schools and school districts that serve
pre-dominantly low-income students (at least 40 percent) can extend
their free meal program to every child, no matter their family’s
earnings.
The
National Free Lunch Program offers free or low-cost lunches to
millions of US school children each year, but students must meet
federal income eligibility guidelines to qualify. The idea behind
CEP is to remove the gap between students who qualify for free
lunches and those who do not – some of whom may come close to
qualifying but not quite make it.
Advocates of the program say that it also takes away the stigma
of eating a “free lunch,” because everyone else is having a free
meal too. Some students have reported being too embarrassed to get
the free or reduced meal they qualify for and instead choosing to go
without one.
The
2011 demographics of Colorado's Cherry Creek School district,
the district that Curry worked for, suggest that most of its schools
would not be eligible for the CEP. Only one or two out of more than
30 elementary schools report having a free/reduced population over
40 percent. In this case, a family of four would need to have an
income of less than $31,000, reports KCNC-TV.
Curry’s school, Dakota Valley Elementary, reports that only 18.7
percent of its students are on the free and reduced meal program.
When a student shows up at Dakota Valley without lunch, it's more
likely to be a case of a forgotten lunch than an impoverished
family.
But is a hamburger bun and a slice of cheese enough for a child?
Curry suggests that it's not. As she
told KCNC-TV, “I’ll own that I broke the law. The law needs to
change.”
©
The Christian Science Monitor. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0603/Behind-the-civil-disobedience-Woman-fired-for-giving-free-lunches-at-school-video