NY School District Regains Local Control and "Opts Out" of the Food Line

The real fight is between federal control and schools reclaiming local control.

A school district says "no thanks" to Federal policy and gives up federal money for its school lunch program.  Life goes on, the food is better and the district has control over its own lunch menu. The district is actually a better steward of resources as students probably won't be throwing as much food away that was uneaten (but forced upon lunch trays) from the mandated Federal menu.  It took the district four months into the Federal program to decide it wasn't worth it financially or nutritionally.

Students stopped buying food because it was not tasty and the school was $59,000 in the red for this budget item. 

From The Huffington Post:

New York's Niskayuna Central School District is severing ties with the National School Lunch program, tossing out its adherence to federal regulations for more fruits and vegetables on lunch trays.

"You are going to be heroes among a lot of kids," Board member John Buhrmaster said, according to Spotlightnews.com. "The program you had before was better than the one dictated by the federal government and the kids understood that, and they will be very appreciative."

Read more here.

From Missouri, you can read here the rules on what children must take to eat via the Federal guidelines.  For example:

Under The Offer Versus Serve Provision for Lunch, LEAs must offer students at
least three menu items as described. Senior high school students must select at
least two menu items; one menu item must be the entree. When more than three
menu items are offered, students may refuse only two items. Again, the entree
must be selected. At the discretion of the LEA, students below the senior high
level may also participate in offer versus serve.

So the lesson learned....is?  Force food and rules upon students that they don't like and don't want, they will throw the food away and stop paying money for a product that is substandard.  There must be an economics/political science lesson or two in this example for the Niskayuna School teachers to use in their classroom. 

Those kids in Kansas are probably hoping their school district makes the same decision.  Remember the clever youtube video the kids produced, "We Are Hungry"?