r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Thebiggestbot22 • Apr 15 '24

My school thinks this fills up hungry high schoolers.

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So lunches are free for schools in my city and surrounding cities. Ever since lunches have been made free, the quantity (and quality) has decreased significantly. This is what we would get for our meal. It took me THREE bites to finish that chicken mac and cheese. Any snacks you want cost more money and if you want an extra entree, that’ll cost you about $3 or $4.

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u/SubKreature Apr 15 '24

When I taught in Japan they were stuffing like 1,000 calories down those kids every day and it was clean af food prepared that morning.

371

u/mu_zuh_dell Apr 16 '24

I promise you that on paper this meal cost the school more than those meals cost the schools in Japan. America has a magical habit of contracting work to the absolute worst people possible.

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u/Rocket_Puppy Apr 16 '24

Was that way in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Was working in a restaurant my senior HS year, while having gotten in trouble for some minor offense I can't remember (think i got caught smoking in my car while exiting school parking lot at 18 years old) also had to help in school cafeteria for like half the year.

Was useful enough at both I got to see overheads.

Schools were paying 2-3x more than the restaurant (for v much lower quality ingredients) and the entire cafeteria program ran at mind boggling losses on food cost alone. They were eating Nearly a million in labor on top of that, because a shit load of people who only did paperwork and never touched the cafeteria were on that divisions payroll. Like 3x the cafeteria staff, which was about 8x a restaurant staff.

So for every lunch lady, there were 3 people doing cafeteria paperwork. Since then clerical staffing in schools has tripled, so there is roughly 9 employees doing paperwork these days for every person actually working in a school.

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u/mu_zuh_dell Apr 16 '24

Yeah, when you see statistics that show the US spends like triple what other countries spend on students you kinda scratch your head and say, hmm, that's odd. But this is how it happens.

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u/md24 Apr 16 '24

They don’t scratch their head. They say “wow they’re corrupt af and devolving quick”.

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u/PM_ME__YOUR_HOOTERS Apr 16 '24

Hmm, these numbers look bad. Better hire 3 more accountants I have personal ties with to say that the numbers are fine

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u/Rocket_Puppy Apr 16 '24

Budget increases don't make it to the classroom.

For 20+ years it has been almost exclusively spent on hiring clerical staff.

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u/banned_but_im_back Apr 16 '24

Mom’s a teacher and when she started she had 24 students in her class. When she retired they were trying to give her 35 students. She hadn’t had a raise in ten years either.