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Post by candykane on Nov 14, 2013 21:34:23 GMT -5
^ I had no idea that some schools don't do full cafeteria lunches! I've officially learned something new today. This reminded me of Beverly Cleary's book The Luckiest Girl. The main character Shelley is living in California for a year, and at her new high school there's no cafeteria. Everyone eats their sack lunches outside on the lawn like a big picnic. I always thought that sounded like fun.
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Post by greer on Nov 15, 2013 8:15:17 GMT -5
^ I had no idea that some schools don't do full cafeteria lunches! I've officially learned something new today. This reminded me of Beverly Cleary's book The Luckiest Girl. The main character Shelley is living in California for a year, and at her new high school there's no cafeteria. Everyone eats their sack lunches outside on the lawn like a big picnic. I always thought that sounded like fun. They do that in the mediator books by Meg Cabot also. I guess it's a warm-weather state thing? Zoar, did you eat outside? My siblings go to school in Florida and they have a kind of covered area with picnic tables. Every day there's some kind of option your parents can buy in advance, or you can bring your lunch. What was really strange to me was the outdoor lockers/hallways.
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Post by zoar3 on Nov 15, 2013 11:42:12 GMT -5
Greer and Candykane, too, when I was in Junior High, a lot of kids did bring paper bag lunches and would eat in a circle on some grass. There was also a cafeteria with tables in a different area of the school. I do remember sometimes getting a bagel and some chocolate milk in JHS and wish I had realized that anyone could get (and a la carte like the bagel and milk) items at lunch, too. I thought the cafeteria was mainly for those kids who got the complete school breakfast or lunches. There is an elementary school across the street from me now. It looks like they have a covered open area with tables. I don't think I have ever seen a completely indoors cafeteria but can understand how in snowy places like Stoneybrook that would be handy.
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Post by sparklymouse on Nov 15, 2013 12:45:37 GMT -5
^ I had no idea that some schools don't do full cafeteria lunches! I've officially learned something new today. Aren't public schools in the US required to? There's a population of kids out there that sometimes the free meals provided at schools are the only food they get because they don't have food at home.
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Post by greer on Nov 15, 2013 12:48:02 GMT -5
We never ate outside. Maybe once a year, if there was a special picnic or something. In elementary school, we just ate in our classrooms, which is kind of gross, haha. In middle/high school we ate family-style in a dining room, since it was also a boarding school, and everyone rotated various jobs during meals. Very different from typical cafeterias!
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Post by greer on Nov 15, 2013 12:49:01 GMT -5
^ I had no idea that some schools don't do full cafeteria lunches! I've officially learned something new today. Aren't public schools in the US required to? There's a population of kids out there that sometimes the free meals provided at schools are the only food they get because they don't have food at home. Maybe private schools?
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Post by zoar3 on Nov 15, 2013 12:52:42 GMT -5
^I think (hope) most public schools do have meal programs. That was what I meant above when I said I wished I had known that besides those (often) pre-paid meals there were other choices (a la carte) and that any cafeteria food could be purchased (with money that day) instead of a pre-paid ticket. It is also so sad that there are a lot of cases where kids who need the food aren't getting it because they might not have a "ticket" or whatever voucher is needed.
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Post by greer on Nov 15, 2013 12:53:53 GMT -5
^I think (hope) most public schools do have meal programs. That was what I meant above when I said I wished I had known that besides those (often) pre-paid meals there were other choices (a la carte) and that any cafeteria food could be purchased (with money that day) instead of a pre-paid ticket. It is also so sad that there are a lot of cases where kids who need the food aren't getting it because they might not have a "ticket" or whatever voucher is needed. What do you mean? That the proper paperwork wasn't filled out?
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Post by zoar3 on Nov 15, 2013 13:15:32 GMT -5
^I just have read in the past some instances of paperwork or even possessing an actual ticket or voucher standing the way of a meal. I hope your boarding school experience Greer was a positive one. I know this is totally off topic to this discussion but didn't you once say you were thinking about writing a second year at Riverbend Fan fic about Mal? I like the idea that your lunchtime was in a dining room and possibly more of a cooperative buffet style. I know this might sound "ideal" but it would be awesome if in schools there was simply a cafeteria/buffet set up and if you needed/wanted to take/enjoy some food, you just did. The only government meal programs I have any experience with is when I was a director of a preschool and had to fill out food program paperwork each month. I remember hating that so much because I had to write down estimates of exactly how much of whatever food (usually breakfast or snacks since lunch was provided differently) would be used at each meal. That was such a hassle and pain. I understand needing to account for whatever food purchases I bought with whatever budget for food I had for the school but to have to figure out amounts that would equal whatever the suggested portion was per kid was ridiculous. As I type this, I can hear the kids at the elementary school across the street at recess. Always brings me a smile to hear happier sounding kids at play.
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Post by greer on Nov 15, 2013 13:26:00 GMT -5
We had an entree (served in a big pan thing to each table, like in a Chinese restaurant) with a vegetarian option if necessary, and then a buffet with a few other choices, a salad bar, and pb&j. We didn't pay for anything (it was covered by tuition/financial aid) and we would also sneak into the kitchen all the time and take stuff ;D I can definitely see that not being feasible in a public school setting, though! Much larger schools and working with a budget set by the district is much more challenging.
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Post by candykane on Nov 15, 2013 14:58:53 GMT -5
I'm finding all this lunch talk very interesting! In middle and high school, we never ate outside, except for one time in eighth grade when we had an end-of-year cookout. My senior year of high school, I did a co-op program where I spent the last two hours of my school day working at a preschool in town. I had to sign myself out before I left every day, so I usually signed out at the beginning of lunch and went to McDonald's with a friend who was doing her own co-op, only hers was at the local police station. It was a nice way to get around the closed-campus rule.
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Post by Honeybee on Nov 15, 2013 15:58:24 GMT -5
When I was kindergarten, we went to cafeteria. They had table seat were built with the tables. But, I switch schools. From 1st grade to 7th grade. We eat our lunch in our classrooms at our desks. We didn't have no hot lunches every day. It's only once in while, we had hot lunches. We had bring a flier home for our parents to read. Give us the money. Mark, what we want on the list. When, I was in high school. (From 9th-10th grade.) Eat at the cafeteria. Tables with bench attach to them. I rarely bought hot lunch at cafeteria. I just like homemade lunch, not school lunch. I think, their was mini store in cafeteria, if you didn't want full meal. But, I only did it once or twice.
I was home schooled off and on. When I was in 11-12th grade. I was home schooled. So, eating lunch at the dinning room table or in my room.
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starrynight
Sitting For The Kuhns
The Royal Diner of Pizza Express
Posts: 4,004
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Post by starrynight on Nov 15, 2013 17:27:49 GMT -5
All of my schools had cafeterias with full school lunches served. In high school, though, no one actually HAD to eat in there. People with cars would leave to get food in other places, and the people who stayed would pretty much sit wherever they wanted throughout the school. My group of friends ate in the front lobby.
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Post by virgoscorpio on Nov 15, 2013 19:57:23 GMT -5
All of my schools had cafeterias with full school lunches served. In high school, though, no one actually HAD to eat in there. People with cars would leave to get food in other places, and the people who stayed would pretty much sit wherever they wanted throughout the school. My group of friends ate in the front lobby. My high-school eating situation was pretty much the same although, in elementary school, we never had a cafeteria and ate only in our classroom. They still do that at the separate school board that I teach at now. We had events like pizza day, hot-dog day, etc. that we paid for food that was brought to the school (but still ate in the classrooms). Now I've noticed that they have a "harvest lunch" at the most recent school I taught at where, once a week, "healthy" lunches - like soups, salads, etc. - could be purchased by a parent and given to a kid each Wednesday, I believe it was. But the school was in an upper-middle-class neigbhourhood, had some money, and parent volunteers - so I don't think that's possible for every school unfortunately.
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Post by Honeybee on Nov 15, 2013 22:59:26 GMT -5
All of my schools had cafeterias with full school lunches served. In high school, though, no one actually HAD to eat in there. People with cars would leave to get food in other places, and the people who stayed would pretty much sit wherever they wanted throughout the school. My group of friends ate in the front lobby. At the high school, I went to. Only the 11th graders & 12th graders were allowed go out to lunch. 9th graders and 10th graders, had stayed in school, for lunch.
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