Unfortunately, that is not the reason for my letter. As I was standing line I heard some very disturbing things. I overheard 3 parents talking about how they get around qualifying for the free lunch program. On campus its no secret that there are many many people on the free lunch program that should not be, and this has been going on for many years.
What disturbs me the most is that this is not the first time that you may have heard about this as I have talked to some parents that they complained to old Principal about the abuse and nothing has been done about it. In fact she seemed to purposely ignore the problem. Some even mentioned that they wrote the board explaining the situation. If fact you were appraised of this situation for more than a year and still have neglected to do anything about the problem. According to the free lunch form you are allowed ask to verification
“VERIFICATION: The information on the application may be checked by Food Service officials at any time during the school year. You may be asked to send information to prove your income, or current eligibility for Food Stamps, CalWORKs, TANF, Kin-GAP, or FDPIR benefits.”
How many people have you asked to verify at Holbrook Elementary. What confuses me that you in the district dare ask people to support the Parcel Tax, but allow this waste to continue. It’s my opinion you have no intention on fixing, or even looking into this problem. Therefore I will be contacting media outlets, newspapers, civic groups, parent groups, claycord.com and everyone else who will listen, then maybe your do your job. Stop wasting taxpayer’s money. Stop allowing this abuse to continue.
Mad Tax Paying hardworking Parent
Name: Madmom
Corrigam Responds
From: Kathleen Corrigan
To: Madmom Athome
Sent: Wed, August 26, 2009 3:35:13 PM
Subject: RE: Holbrook Elementary Free lunch program
Dear Madmom Athome:
Thank you for your email. I appreciate your thoughts, your careful evaluation of our program and your suggestions for improvements. Let me give you some background that will aide in this discussion.
Our meal application practices are strictly governed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the California Department of Education (CDE). USDA requires that we verify applications every year in the fall and the CDE ensures that we do that. In this process applications are randomly selected and those families are obligated to provide proof of household income, food stamps, CalWORKs, etc. along with social security numbers of each household member 21 years or older. By regulation, we “must not verify more than or less than the standard sample size or the alternate sample size (when used) and must not verify all (100% of) applications (emphasis added by editor).” The standard sample size is the most we can verify and that amount is 3% of the applications we receive districtwide.
If this documentation does not prove the eligibility as written on the original application, the benefits are reduced or eliminated as indicated by the new information. If the household does not reply to verification their benefits are eliminated. While verification is not done with all applications, nor are we allowed to do that, it does provide a limited means of testing the system and some element of threat for all families.
We had been following a practice of requiring income documentation for any second application from a family stating their income had decreased or their family size increased. During our recent state audit we were told we could not do that.
While there are no doubt some exceptions, I’m sure you will agree that our program does serve a large number of truly needy children. We also serve as a safety net for those families hit by unemployment and other economic challenges.
You are obviously committed to this issue. Since the regulations are written by USDA to meet legislation passed by Congress, you might want to communicate your concerns directly with your legislators. I appreciate your concern and wish I could offer more but we already do what we can within the law.
Thank you again for sharing your concerns.
Kathleen
Kathleen A. Corrigan, MBA, RD
Director – Food and Nutrition Services
Mt. Diablo Unified School District
1936 Carlotta Drive
Concord, CA 94519
925.682.8000 x 4124
925.609.7568 fax
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I know we were hit by unemployment and I did nothing to get the free lunches. There is a quarterly reporting system that MDUSD is connected with the county that automatically qualifies students for free lunches. I was sent a letter to the effect and had repeated phone calls because I didn’t fill out for a free lunch. It is all in the database. My kids can’t eat school lunches due to allergies and a poor nutrition of school lunches. The meat alternative is a gelatin based, starch ridden yogurt cup which is not a alternative to meat since it still has meat products. When/ if I apply for a free lunch I am automatically qualified for the free lunch due to us recieving food stamps and Medi-Cal. We still have Medi-Cal but the share of cost is 1300 a month but do not qualify since my husband regained a job after 4 months.