The Lunch Lady, Ever Unpopular!

The tony suburb of Newton, Massachusetts, like 99.9% of the rest of municipalities nationwide, is having some fiscal trouble.

Newton's School Cafeteria Workers Fight For Their Jobs

As Newton Public Schools looks to privatize cafeteria services, the union representing the schools' 65 cafeteria workers is reaching out to Newton parents for support in the fight to keep the workers' jobs.

In a letter to several Parent Teacher Organizations, Tim Curry, president of the Newton Public School Custodians Association, the union which represent cafeteria and custodial workers, advocates against the outsourcing, saying it will lead to poor service. He said the 65 workers rely heavily on their salaries to support their families.

"These workers, almost exclusively female, have dedicated many years of service to the system and, are among the lowest paid workers in the system," Curry writes. "Your children deserve to have someone handling their food who has a strong connection to the community and is concerned about the quality of food services for those children. The employees who live in this community and whose children also have attended Newton Schools will provide that service; contracted employees with no connection to Newton will not."

Blah, blah, blah. Wa, wa, wa. Cry me a river!

On Sunday, Mayor Setti Warren announced an estimated $6 million gap in the school budget for Newton.

I know the answer(s), but I have to scream out loud, "How the [bleep] does a town of 83,000 people develop a $6 million ANNUAL school budget deficit?!"

In an interview, Curry said it is not fair to blame money loss [sic] on the workers. Many of the cafeteria workers are older women, and many live in Newton, he said.

Not their fault?

Except:

Last May, the Newton School Committee voted to explore the option of privatization of the cafeteria services after a subcommittee found that the school district expects to lose$905,000 on food services last year, compared with $416,000 in 2006. Part of the deficit, the subcommittee reported, stems from low participation in the school lunch program, ranging from 25 percent at the city's high schools to 60 percent at Lincoln-Eliot Elementary School.

Well perhaps if they cooked something the kids liked...!!!

For those of you unaware, Newton, where I happened to live before discovering Boston's South Shore, is one freakin' wealthy town. All they have to do is make everyone brownbag their lunch and it'll single-handedly erase probably $1 million out of the $6 million deficit.

It almost goes without saying, that every single aspect of government schools - no matter the high-priced town - is a profound joke.

They can't manage milk and cookies, yet people are content to let them manage the minds of their precious children.

(BTW, Newton is the worst place I've ever lived - in terms of intolerable Morons and assorted mind deviants. I'd rather live in ultra-loony Cambridge, MA!)