It probably goes back to the beginning of our nation. We have
developed a suspicious attitude toward our Working Class. It shows up
in most of our dealings.
I'm reminded when I was in second grade, back in 1942, my teacher
announced that Tuesdays would be Banking Day. We all opened bank
accounts and received our own bank books. Every Tuesday we would
bring our money to school and put it in our account. But my parents
were struggling in those days. Savings accounts were luxuries in our
house. I would beg mother for a nickle, but many times she simply
shook her head. Then, once class began, my teacher would announce,
"We did not have 100% banking this week because one student did not
bring his deposit. Carl, will you stand up so the students can see
who kept us from 100%?" And I would stand. I hated that teacher.
And I came to have an attitude toward the sort of people my snobby
classmates grew up to be.
And when I first heard Donald Trump, I was jarred back to the smug,
sneering voices of my classmates when we were out of earshot from the
teacher. That woman had turned an entire class against me by mocking
me. Most of the children in that second grade class were with me for
nine long years. Yet I was never invited to a social gathering, and
to only one single birthday party. Most of my teachers knew which
children to butter up. My family was not part of the social network
of Queen Anne Hill.
And yet, I came to appreciate the "real education" from such attitudes
and unspoken treatment bestowed on me, but not on my classmates.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/22/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I thought that this article is an example of the mentality of so many people
in this country now. It's a result of all of the budget cutting and of
Trump's propaganda.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2019 2:08 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: PA School District Threatens to Call Foster
Care on Parents Who Don't Pay Off Children's Lunch Debt
The beauty of negative punishment is that when it fails to work(which is
most of the time)we can just bear down a little harder...and then a little
harder. And when our harsh efforts fail, we can shrug and say that the
reason is because "they don't care", or "They're shiftless and lazy".
Carl Jarvis
On 7/22/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
PA School District Threatens to Call Foster Care on Parents Who Don't
Pay Off Children's Lunch Debt By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Jezebel
21 July 19
Joseph Muth, a director of federal programs for Pennsylvania's Wyoming
Valley West School District, sent a letter to approximately 1,000
parents last week threatening that the school district would report
them to 'Dependency Court' if they did not immediately pay their
children's outstanding school lunch balance.
Per the Washington Post, Muth's letter read:
"Your child has been sent to school every day without money and
without a breakfast and/or lunch," the 200-word letter read. "This is
a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be
sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child's right to food. If
you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being
removed from your home and placed in foster care."
The letter, versions of which were obtained by various news
organizations including the Post and NBC News, was swiftly denounced
by other school district board members and officials in Luzerne
County, which runs the foster care program. Joanne Von Saun, Luzerne's
Director of Children and Youth Services, told ABC affiliate WNEP that
the threat was "unacceptable...
This causes more antagonism so that when we're knocking on the doors,
families see us more as a threat instead of an agency that will
provide support and lend assistance." She added that she viewed it as
"terrorizing children and families."
On Friday, Muth backtracked, telling ABC News that it was a "mistake"
to send the threatening letter, but he declined to disclose how the
letter initially came about. But Charles Coslett, a school board
member who has reportedly "forced 50 families to dependency court for
truancy where parents risked having their children placed in foster
care because their kids kept on skipping school," stood by the letter.
Coslett told ABC News:
"It merely lays out the options available to the district if people
continue to ignore their parental responsibility and the nutritional
needs of their minor sons and daughters... These parents need to look
in the mirror...This matter isn't going away merely because delinquent
debtors make Valley West the bad guy."
The school district is trying to collect a little over $22,000 in
lunch debt, in a county where 14 percent of families live below the
poverty line and where the school district "qualifies for enough money
to provide free lunches to all students for the upcoming school year,"
per WNEP. And while Wyoming Valley West School Board Vice President
David Usavage, who condemned the letter, told WNEP that similar
letters wouldn't be leveraged in the future, this type of threat is
part of a larger national trend in which schools and school districts
adopt practices that effectively shame and punish children and parents
who can't afford to pay for lunch. In May, Nadra Nittle wrote an
investigation for Eater about this practice, nothing that after the
"Great Recession, "a number of school districts found themselves in a
financial crunch and began using punitive measures to settle meal
debt."
Nittle cited incidents in Rhode Island, Minnesota, Colorado, and
Alabama, among others, in which students were publicly shamed for
their debt and withheld hot lunches or even academic honors, and
chronicled the ways this type of punishment can effect children's
self-esteem and ability to perform well in school overall. Nittle also
wrote about the ways school districts punish parents with delinquent
lunch bills, sending them to debt collectors among other
family-upending consequences. (It's a comprehensive, illuminating,
infuriating piece-read it in full here.)
As for the Wyoming Valley West School District's Coslett, who is also
representing the board as their lawyer, it seems like shaming might
just be part of the calculus. Referring to a letter received by a
mother who owed $75, he told WNEP, "Where did that $75 go? Is it going
to cigarettes? Is it going to alcohol? We don't know. That's right, we
don't know that," he said.
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