Fairfax Fed Up With Lunch-Line Thieves

[flashl]

$1 Million Loss Leads to Security Cameras in School Cafeterias

By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 4, 2008; Page A01

For the first time, video cameras will monitor Fairfax County high school cafeterias this fall to keep students from pilfering chicken wraps or veggie burgers in the lunch line.

The region's largest school system is turning to video surveillance, already widely used on school buses and outside school buildings, to combat what officials say has become a pervasive problem: food theft. The school system's food and nutrition services department estimated that $1.2 million worth of prepared food was lifted from cafeterias in the past school year.

Board members decided last month that they could no longer swallow such losses, given a $150 million school budget shortfall and rising food prices. They approved a one-year tryout for cafeteria cameras at Annandale, Mount Vernon and Westfield high schools and Lake Braddock, Robinson and South County secondary schools.

Penny McConnell, director of food and nutrition services, said she hopes the cameras will curb theft and send a message to students that stealing from the cafeteria is no less serious than shoplifting from a store. "I would hate for them to make this a habit and take it into the community," she said. "They could get themselves into some serious situations that could impact their futures."

Maybe, a food assistance program for students cost too much or hungry students did not enter into the board's equation?

[waiting for hope]

1. I went to Lake Braddock -

But that was over 20 years ago. I had heard a few years ago that there was a gang problem there, which had surprised me. When I was there, it differently was an upper middle class school, drawing from neighborhoods with million dollar homes. It was said that there was a large portion of Hispanics that had moved into the area. On Edit: I'm not trying to sound like a bigot - just saying what I had heard.

[BonnieJW]

2. What if

the kids who are stealing can't afford to buy lunch?

[noamnety]

4. Normally they'd be in the free/reduced lunch program

and they would be getting lunch for free or at a very low cost depending on their family income.

[MountainLaurel]

5. Undocumented parents might be an issue

In at couple of those schools and probably all of them. Do kids still get free/reduced lunch if their parents are unable to fill out the paperwork?

[noamnety]

6. They would need to fill out the paperwork

I will say that the one student I know was stealing food from me was stealing/hoarding a LOT of it - we're talking entire boxes of snack bars, which I know because she accidentally lifted her jacket up in front of me and they all came falling out of her pocket - and this was a girl who was already getting free lunches from me because she was helping in the kitchen (her income wasn't an issue, if they helped me, I fed them whether their families were living in poverty or millionaires.)

I think schools would love to feed all their students free breakfasts and lunches. The ones that are free are paid for by the state, not the school. Schools just don't have the margin in their budget to do that, any more than they have the budget to provide free medical care to all their students. Administrators understand that students need to be fed and need preventative medical care to learn well ... but we aren't funded to do that. Dollars for that come at the expense of teacher salaries. With the budget we have, we can't be all things.

[noamnety]

3. They would have a free/reduced lunch program

I'm pretty sure about that.

I keep free food in my classroom at my own expense, but I can understand why a lunch program can't operate that way normally. Our school canceled its lunch program after recording a 20k loss for the year. Maybe to people in huge districts that doesn't sound like a lot, but for us it's the difference between having to lay off a teacher or not. $1.2 million equals an awful lot of teachers to lay off.