EDITORIAL – The Madera Unified School District closed all the schools but, to be able to hold on to their Federal Grant for free school lunches, began their emergency food distributions today. How did it turn out? John Adams was out of lunches in 20 minutes, Sierra Vista ran out in about the same amount of time.

Schools from all over the city of Madera were calling for more lunches, but Lincoln School was so overstocked that many other schools were sending vans there to pick up the excess and re-distribute it where needed. Then Lincoln ran out and the district’s child nutrition office brought them more. Isn’t it funny how Lincoln always seems to get the most from the school district? Even during a time of emergency.

Getting this right should not have been such a hard thing. The district gives out lunches every summer. They know how this works. They had since Friday night to figure this out. We are doing surveys for home internet use; couldn’t anyone anticipate the needs at each location?  

Didn’t anyone anticipate parents driving from school to school collecting lunches for their whole family? Not just students, their whole family? Didn’t anyone anticipate the greed factor that all of us are dealing with when we go to the grocery stores?

I pulled up to the line at Lincoln, because my daughter’s elementary school (John Adams) was out, and was asked how many lunches I needed. I only had my daughter in the car and she was ready to show her Madera South High School identification card to prove she was a student. Get the picture, only one student in the car and I was asked how many lunches I needed?

Is this why the schools were running out so quickly?

Superintendent Todd Lile says the district has to rely on an “honor system” but he fails to understand that this is the same “honor system” that has cleaned out our stores of essentials like cheese, hand soap, and toilet paper. Sad to say, but we are learning a harsh fact that for some people in a state of emergency, there is no honor.

As for any greedy parents who took more than they were expected to, SHAME ON YOU!  Shame on you for what you are teaching your children during this time of emergency. I would hope that as parents you would want to teach your kids honesty. I was asked, “how many lunches?”. My answer was “ONE”, not ‘five’, not even ‘two’. The rules said students under 18 and in the car. In this case that was ONE.

What do I teach my daughter by scamming the system out of two pieces of bread and some lunch meat? I teach her that my integrity has no value. I would miss the opportunity to teach her that honesty, integrity, and honor mean something in our family. If you teach your kid it’s ok to steal a sandwich from her peers during a National Emergency, you are simply teaching them it is ok to steal.

So don’t be surprised when you get that phone call from Madera PD that your princess is in the lockup at your local Walmart because she thought she was entitled to a new lipstick at a five-finger discount. Didn’t you teach her it was ok when you grabbed extra sandwiches from the school during a free food giveaway?

As for where Madera Unified could have better provided for their students today, each kid is on a school roster or has a school ID. Why didn’t the district train staff to ask for an ID or require students to go to their home elementary school where the schools could ensure one student, one lunch?

The district routinely sends out robocalls during the dinner hour from “Britney” at the high school reminding parents to order yearbooks a few dozen times at the end of the year. Why couldn’t they have sent out a phone survey as to where parents wanted to pick up the lunches?

The district has turned every other parent organization at the schools into market survey groups; this would have given the district the data they needed to determine where the needs were.

Madera Unified had one chance to get today right and they failed. Hopefully, by tomorrow they will realize where they need improvement and get it right.