Too Good For Cafeteria Grub? Brown Bag It.
Sometimes you read a Sunday newspaper story and your reaction is simply, WTH?
That was mine when I read a Washington Post piece yesterday headlined: “Students, Bored By Cafeteria Fare, Love Fast Food Delivery Services; Schools Don’t.”
Seems spoiled suburban brats from coast to coast are ordering Thai food and gourmet sandwiches from delivery services such as DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats instead of consuming whatever’s on the lunch menu in the school cafeteria.
Who thought this was a good idea? Which schools were the first to allow it? Oh and how are these pubescent connoisseurs paying for these services - with their own credit cards? Mom and Dad’s accounts?
The story didn’t bother answering those questions. Nope, the writer was too busy taking shots at the Trump administration for rolling back some of the school lunch nutrition rules pushed by Michelle Obama.
Pity, because those questions are key. But you know The Post: Stories that don’t bash the president die in darkness. Even if the president has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I did learn this from the Post’s thinly reported piece: Apparently, school office workers have been turned into gofers for parents and kids:
“At Granite Bay High School near Sacramento, a ban on all deliveries to students — not just food but homework, backpacks and clothing — caused some grumbling, but mostly among parents.
“The administration got tired of being errand runners for parents who were delivering pretty much everything to their students and expecting the delivery would make it to Jimmy or Susie in their classrooms,” Karl Grubaugh, a teacher and faculty adviser to the school newspaper, said in an email.
Now, students must retrieve any items delivered by parents from a table outside the front office.”
This is nuts.
Here’s a revolutionary idea: If kids forget their backpacks, homework or sports uniforms, too bad. If they pay the consequences for their forgetfulness a time or two they’ll stop relying on Mommy and Daddy to chase after them with their backpacks and jockstraps.
Oh, and if teens don’t like cafeteria lunches, let ‘em make their own lunches.
Problem solved. Money saved. Lessons learned.
