This is a follow-up to my previous letter about free and reduced lunches (FRLs) in the city of Fayetteville schools. I would have responded earlier, but I just got back in town. The view I presented was mine alone, not that of the city of Fayetteville Council. The same goes for this letter.
First of all, because the media used the title “fraud in schools,” some assumed I was saying the schools were acting fraudulently. To quote Dr. Barrow, “that was patently false, inaccurate or lacking clarity.”
I have to agree with Dr. Barrow because I did not say that or even intend that. [EDITOR’s NOTE: SEE BELOW.] The point I made was that the application itself was designed to allow fraud by not requesting income validation up-front or asking for a person’s place of employment.
Then, because I am aware of the average household income within the city of Fayetteville, I questioned the number of FRL qualified students in our city schools. There is no way 42.9 percent of all our school-age kids are at or below the poverty level. The numbers just don’t match up.
Because of this discrepancy, I had to assume there are people fraudulently filling out this form. That is what upset me the most, especially since these FRL numbers are tied to so many other critically important things.
Let me again make it very clear that the hands of the FCOBE and Dr. Barrow are tied when it comes to asking for verification of income to accompany this application. To make matters worse, legally, under federal law per the Department of Agriculture, they are not even allowed to verify more than a random 3 percent of these applications after the fact.
As promised, I sent a letter to the Georgia Department oF Education. In the first letter I asked if it would be okay for FCBOE to ask for income validation up-front in lieu of the suspected fraud (gave them all the data) and if not, how many cases could be legally checked under “verification for cause,” which means after an application has been verified, there are questions about its “integrity”.
The first response letter circumvented my questions and just reiterated what I already knew. Not giving in, I sent another asking why they weren’t answering me specifically about the “verification for cause” clause. The answer was again politically vague and I was referred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture which mandated all these regulations in the first place.
Moving on, I would like to give a thumbs-up to the two young people who were brave enough to send in letters to the editor in opposition to mine, although they presumed I was against offering free and reduced lunches. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Every child needs proper nutrition in order to succeed. I do hope they understand that when it comes to FRLs, those most in need are automatically approved to receive breakfast and lunch since they are already receiving Medicaid, TANF and in some cases SNAP. My letter was about the moral turpitude of those filling out the applications, not denial of the need. If it were up to me, all children would receive free lunches.
I did receive a lot of emails confirming my presumption. Hopefully next year there will be more vigilance.
I also want to clear the air about Title One schools. I can’t do anything about their negative stigma, although I do realize some very successful students come out of them. Besides two Title One schools in Fayette County have managed to get “B” grades from the state, while a non-Title One got a D rating.
Still, it is the city of Fayetteville’s goal to make our schools great again in order to draw new families and world-class businesses. Title One or not, there are ways in which we can all help turn our schools around. As of now, all of our city’s schools have a C rating. They used to have A’s and B’s.
According to the latest research, here are the main causes of failure:
1. Cell phones – they are anonymous with procrastination.
2. Lack of outside school support for home projects and studying. I can identify with this one because as a single mother, I was often too burnt out after work and making dinner to happily sit down and help figure out math or physics. Since we have so many retired folk living here, it would be nice to see a one-on-one “rent a grandparent” mentor program, especially for the middle and elementary kids. Could make for a rewarding church out-reach program, don’t you think?
3. Lack of interest in required work: Today’s kids just aren’t seeing the relevance in what they are required to learn. It is my understanding that Dr. Barrow along with the Coweta School District is leaning more and more towards the European model in which kids are allowed early on to follow their passions.
This means a kid who wants to be an auto-mechanic or radiologist can start taking related classes in high school instead of taking college bound academia. Besides, late in life, if he or she has any question on just about anything, there is always Google, right? Plus the kids enjoy what they are learning and are able to graduate with specific job skills.
4. I find this one very interesting – it seems the youth of today suffer from a sense of entitlement. That means they expect others to do for them what they should be doing for themselves, like school work and research/writing assignments.
In closing, I recommend people watch Michael Moore’s latest movie “Where to Invade Next.” In it he goes all over the world to steal other nation’s best ideas for reforming our work schedules, judicial and penal systems as well as our education system. Very eye-opening.
Relevant case in-point: He shows French and Norwegian’s children’s lunches being served in courses on real china plates with real silverware and drinking glasses. Learning manners and restaurant etiquette is part of the deal. Not to mention the food is really fresh and to us would seem gourmet.
Somehow these countries are able to pull this off for an average of $5 a meal and the lunches are free. That is only $1.50 more than what we charge. Hmmmm …
Kathaleen Brewer
kathaleenbrewer@bellsouth.net
Fayetteville, Ga.
[The editor replies: Fayetteville Councilwoman Brewer implies the headline on the original story about her letter was misleading (“Councilwoman Brewer: ‘Fraud’ at Fayette schools?” — The Citizen, June 8, 2016) Perhaps she should re-read her own letter on which the headline question is based, in which she uses the word “fraud” no fewer than seven times and the word “crooked” once.
“… Going back to the original numbers of kids qualifying for free and reduced lunches, there obviously has to be a lot of crooked parents, but who can blame them?”
“… This kind of application is just asking for fraud.”
“… Third, the general public is beginning to suspect there is fraud on the part of the school district in order to get Title One money and extra electronic equipment.”
“… Besides that, if any citizen has evidence of fraud, there should be a phone line for them to report it and staff to handle the calls. I also think if an example was made of someone actually being convicted of fraud and paying a fine or going to jail, a good number of these FRLs (Free and Reduced Lunches) would cease to be.”
“… As a community, this obvious fraud is hurting us all, especially when we are trying to attract young families and new businesses so as not to economically implode. We all want to see our schools climb back up to the level they were 10 years ago. If the demographics have really changed that much, that fact should be based on true data, not fraud.”
“… Congress should establish clearer guidelines for school districts to investigate suspected fraud and explore alternative income-documentation methods for faster and more reliable data.”
Ms. Brewer explicitly raised the question of fraud throughout her letter, which stands as the best evidence of what she actually wrote, however she may be reinterpreting the issue in hindsight.]
