To the Editor:
This fall Preferred Meals (pre-packaged) will be served in our schools. We’re all feeling ramifications of outsourcing nationwide. Now our school administration has begun outsourcing tactics on our local level. Recent staff cuts include five cooks and one secretary from the food service department. Plans are to implement a cafeteria at Bell-Herron thus compromising the stage area. One reason given...street crossing safety. Students have crossed the street for decades and cross for band and go back and forth to busses, even in the morning darkness. Is not a crossing guard cheaper than a new cafeteria? Carrollton’s cafeteria has.
transported hot food to Harlem, Kilgore, Dellroy, Augusta and Willis, some over 35 years that I can recall and for many years has transported hot lunches up the hall to the high school snack shack. I think we could take morning prepared hot fresh lunches across the street as opposed to building another cafeteria and outsourcing lunches from out of state. If you are saying to yourself that your kids just won’t eat, please ask yourself if it would matter. There is that old saying of one less mouth to feed.
It is not my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings. Most likely I cannot convey my thoughts without doing so. I have been awake many nights asking myself who and why someone came up with this idea. Administration starts at the top. They are targeting a strong union at the bottom of the pay scale now but all school employees be mindful that heat rises. Outsourcing tactics can infiltrate secretaries, janitors, bus drivers and even teachers. Taking jobs from the community and from the same people asked to support the levy is only part of it. Cuts are being made everywhere and our district is no exception to the financial catastrophe. Still, I question how the astronomical cost of manpower and fuel in growing and transporting food to a processing plant, safely preparing, processing and packaging lunches, retransporting it across state lines to Atlantic Foods distribution center in Canton and transporting it to our school for lunch could significantly be cheaper than having five lunch ladies on the school payroll. School lunches are reimbursed by state and federal money. As an Ohio taxpayer, I resent taking jobs away from here and purchasing lunches out of state.
In speaking with our school treasurer this week, I asked if there would still be use of facility for the many organizations who fundraise by using the cafeteria equipment as I wanted to clarify any rumors about equipment being removed. She assured me there would still be use of facility and that they needed the equipment to prepare high school lunches. High school students are not getting the preferred meals, however, she said they will only be served the things they like. Does this mean the kettles, etc. all stay? Kettles are used by organizations and used in fixing some of the kids’ favorite meals such as mac and cheese and spaghetti and other government commodities. I asked her if our government commodities are being signed over to the food company and she told me that they would be signed over as we would then receive 20 cents per meal savings. Again, I question the cost of now buying everything for high school lunches versus not having government commodities to use. Will our reimbursement dollars change? Is our district role modeling this plan to other schools? Consider the thousands of Ohio retirees in the School Employees Retirement System (SERS). It is struggling already, now cut staff who are baseline support from the system? Outsourcing could be catastrophic to SERS. Our pensions are guaranteed (again, taxpayer dollars) but our health insurance benefit is not and it could be the first entity cut from retirees because of outsourcing. We should all help one another. What may look good on one set of books can destroy another’s.
To the lunch ladies who lost their jobs I say.. You may not have a professional degree but you have shown an outstanding degree of professionalism to the staff and kids every day I ever worked with you. You got up early and left work exhausted. You did everything ever asked of you. You related, prepared and cared genuinely. Food safety was a top priority. These changes have been havocking your lives for over a year and will continue to do so as I know most of you carry the health insurance. You always supported the rest of the staff when they needed you and I know you have felt alone in this. Many staff members are afraid to speak out in fear of being reprimanded or putting their job on the line even though they don’t agree. This is a shame as they are the ones who touch student lives every day. As a friend and taxpayer, I am very sorry for that. Previous administrations seemed much more aware of your dedication. I know that you all have ideas as how to make adjustments and save money in the cafeteria. Most of us grew up in this district and raised our families here. This is one of the saddest decisions I have ever seen. I know a lot of other people out there feel as I do and just as I have done, waited too long to say something.
To Bonnie Little, I commend you for not being a rubber stamp board member. You considered the lives of people and lack of information over a dollar sign. To the other board members, I respectfully ask you to rethink this, give back the jobs and leave our cafeteria alone. I know that the cooks and their supervisor would work diligently to come up with alternative solutions and you can continue cuts through attrition. If not, where will hurtful outsourcing stop? We have fewer buildings, less employees, less enrollment and more technology yet there are more people working in the treasurer’s office? Would you consider cuts there? Would you muster up figures to see if it is feasible to hire an out of state accounting firm for the district? Sound cynical? It is the same concept. We are paying people a lot of money to come up with these ideas. Preferred Meals? I prefer not!
Robin Anderson
30-year retiree of Carrollton Schools
Carrollton, OH
<<Back>> |
