Hmm, "in loco parentis"; since these schools enjoy mandatory attendance and
claim all sorts of domain over our children I think they are obligated to feed
the kids.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2019 12:59 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] PA School District Threatens to Call Foster Care on
Parents Who Don't Pay Off Children's Lunch Debt
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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