The Fox News affiliate out of Houston reports on one dad’s befuddlement with his school district’s free and reduced-priced lunch program:
No one would want to see a student go hungry all day, including Bill Carver.
“I don’t have a problem with people getting free food that need it,” Carver said. “Obviously we want the kids fed.”
But Carver said his 13 and 15-year-old sons don’t need a free lunch and based on the Houston Independent School District’s guidelines, there’s no way they could even qualify. HISD offers reduced prices for lunch when a family of four makes less than $41,000 a year, free lunches for families of four making less than $28,000 a year.
Carver, who lives in West University Place doesn’t want his families income public knowledge, but the puzzled father says his sons aren’t even close to qualifying and HISD knows that.
“And for some reason both of my children qualified for free lunches even though my income level is probably five times the required limit,” Carver said.
Carver said he spoke to a supervisor with the district’s free lunch program who offered no explanation as to why his sons qualified.
Carver also claims that his son was told the form had to be filled out, and that he was pulled from class and compelled to do so.
Carolina Journal has reported in the past on questions surrounding the F&R program. Specifically in Houston, a verification summary, taken from a very small sample of students enrolled in the program, suggested a potential fraud rate of 73 percent for the 2007-2008 school year.
