Free the Readington 29

I love this story.

Stupid administrators! (God only knows how much they're paid...)

Good for the kids.

If one were the little prof, I'd be proud.

(Moreover, is this the first time the school system has emphasized the "value that is placed on free speech and the democratic process in our country"?)

Every televised news report I saw referred to the incident as a prank, with no mention of a protest.

SFGate says this:

"Superintendent Jorden Schiff says it started out as a prank. But as the eighth-graders began to get in trouble for taking up so much time, it turned into a protest about Thursday's shortened lunch period."

Whatever the real issue was, as usual, it's gotten lost in all of the hoopla.

Even re-packaged as a "protest," this prank was intended to show the school how dumb their "policy" was.

So, it doesn't really matter much what they call it (although, it is suspect that they felt the need to dignify their acts with the noble "protest" tag).

I sometimes pay the pizza delivery man with rolled quarters.

Is this a school system where Thursdays are shorter days? If so then what is the problem with a shorter lunch period. In the work world that would be the case and "protesting" to ones boss may work for WGA members but my stuffed shirts would point to the door.

I'm thinking Kramer trying to pay for George Steinbrenner's calzone with pockets of change.

Can I then assume that folks would have no problems standing in line at the grocery store, the gas station, the deli, the coffee shop, while persons ahead of them (perhaps 20 or 25) paid for their purchases in pennies?
Why not try it on the Turnpike or Parkway? Sure to get an enthusiastic reception from employees and fellow motorists!

Comparing a school to the work place is not applicable.

(Students are required by law to attend. Teachers have tenure. Union workers have negotiated rights. Most workers however, are usually at will employees and can be fired for almost anything. Therefore, what happens in either "workplace" is not comparable.)

Bloomfield High School has the same idiotic 30 minute lunch "hour". Claim they can serve 600 kids in 30 minutes. You do the math.

Does anyone need an explanation of the concept of "legal tender?"

Deb,

The cost info you have on the penny is old. Because of big increases in metal prices and the weak dollar, we currently lose money on both the penny and the nickel.

croiagusanam,

Most toll booths do no accept pennies, and this is permissible under the law.

The comparison is most certainly valid.
Cafeteria workers work for private companies which have contracts with the district. They are not school employees, do not have tenure, and can be (and often are) fired at will.
It is they who bore the brunt of this "prank/protest".

Yet their JOB is to be a cashier. So how can taking money be a problem for them?

If the school schedules too many students for a lunch period, is it not the workers fault, is it?

So brunt or not, the workers cannot be held accountable for the scheduling.

Remember: "cafeteria ladies felt disrespected" for doing their jobs?

Strange to me.

"Comparing a school to the work place is not applicable. "

My parents made that comparison everyday. School was my job. Do good, go to college, get a good job, and provide for your life. Am I missing something ? has it changed since I was a kid?

Commenters here have to be kidding. What could be more obviously constitutionally protected speech than this? It's orderly, largely inoffensive, and makes a statement. They didn't throw food, throw any punches, yell and scream, hell -- they didn't even leave their trays on their tables. They just paid for their lunches in a way that would send a message of their opinion.

Whether you agree with the statement or not is beside the point. The school (as an arm of the state) cannot punish students (who are required to attend school by law) for speaking out against a policy with which they disagree. Comparisons therefore to the grocery store or gas station are ridiculous.

The principal's solution was clever but troubling. In short, he let any kid out of the punishment who had a parent who would stand up for the kid's rights. That saves him from a lawsuit (because any kid who doesn't have such a parent is unlikely to have the ability to sue), and leaves in place his unconstitutional exercise of state power.

From the stuff I've read, the administration had other issues in providing the students with an acceptable environment and had a "don't question us" attitude, one of the reasons for a teacher advocate being suggested. I applaud the kids for coming up with something other than taking over the school's office and trashing it (like they did in Mtc. High in 1972). I say good job.

And suppose you decided to quit at age 14?

Can't do it.

So while your folks, like many, chose to say it's your job (which does not make it work), I imagine that was only to teach you a lesson in responsibility.

And if so, I know many teachers who would love to fire some kids.......

I guess professor that is why I know so many people my age, still living at their parents house, spending days connected to their Xboxes, smoking weed and waiting to figure out what they want out of life - other then to smoke weed, live at their parents house and spend most days in their jammies. After all they can't be fired from nothing.

(hrhppg, read it three times and have no idea what you're talking about...)

john, I suggest that you take a quick look at the past 30 years or so of school law in order to get a better idea of what schools can and cannot do vis a vis "free speech". You are WAY off the mark.
prof, of course the cafeteria ladies are not the schedulers. But in fact, most schools in this state at least do not have one hour lunch "hours". 30 minutes or so is the norm. In order to make the period longer, something else would have to be shortened, or the day would have to begin soner and/or end later. So this is the schedule that they devised. To say that the administrators are "stupid" for this, without any knowledge of the circumstances, is absurd. Now, I would agree that their response was rather ham-handed. As far as the ladies go, well, if you don't think that they were stressed with 100 or so kids clamoring for their food, pushing and jostling like middle schoolers do, in a din comparable to the runway at JFK, while they tried to count out 300 or so pennies for 25 or 30 kids, well, YOU try it. Then I'll tell you that it is your "job", so deal with it.

Yea, fortunately, I don't have to "try" it. So if the "ladies" are stressed, they should get another job.

So sorry, counting money in a school caf IS their job!

As for the administrators, they are the ones who chose this schedule. So if their "workers" cannot handle it, they all better work together to find a better schedule.

It really isn't that complex.

I think the "smoking weed" can account for the parental loafing, pajama-wearing and videogaming lifestyle.

Sorry, wrong post.

Pennies, back to pennies.

So again, prof, we'll put you on line at the ShopRite while 25 people pay for their purchases with pennies, and you'll wait patiently and not view it as a disruption because, after all, it is the cashiers job to count money, and if they can't handle it, they should get a different job.
You're right. It is not complex at all.

Cro,

I think that comparison is a bit faulty.

In the school example; the other students were most likely aware of the situation and therefore not acting out against the lunch ladies any more than usual.

In the grocery store situation; the non-offending shoppers were most likely not aware and should be annoyed with their fellow patron(s) and not the cashier who is just trying to do their job.

Then again, maybe I just spent too many years both in various CSR positions and the target of school admins trying to "make an example" (continued to wear a black trench coat after Columbine. Oh, no!) to have anything but sympathy for CSRs & the kids in question.

I think many are missing the point of the students' actions. If their lunch situation is anything like that at BHS, 30 minutes is not enough time for every student in the lunch period to select, purchase, and eat the lunch of their choice. So you end up with kids either not eating, or eating a bagel (or whatever is quick). The students have no choice but to eat "in" the cafeteria. It's not at all similar to waiting in line at the grocery store. If I go grocery shopping and the store's lines are too long, the cashiers are too slow, I can abandon my cart and go elsewhere or I can see it through for today but shop elsewhere next time, with better service. The kids can't "shop" elsewhere. They're a captive audience.

I am all for acts of civil disobedience providing that innocent people are not inconvenienced in any way. So, yeah, in this case, the lunch ladies bore the brunt of this protest and they didn't deserve it. The lunch ladies did not set the 30-minute policy.

This reminds me of the cabbie strike a few years ago, where the cab drivers deliberately drove in traffic at 10 mph to make a point. The only thing they managed to do was piss off a lot of innocent motorists. Not a good way to woo people to your cause!

Thirty minutes for lunch is a rather common allowance in schools. Even 40+ years ago, 25 minutes was all the time we got for lunch (at 11AM) at a Catholic h.s. Dismissal was at 2PM.

We often paid for lunch with pennies back then, which were gladly accepted. But also back then, a grilled cheese and a container of juice only cost something like 65 cents tops.

Exactly how were the lunch cashiers inconvenienced? I don't follow that. You mean by counting the pennies?

Uh, yeah! Plus having to deal with all the other angry kids waiting on line for their turn to pay.

Mike, the fact that 25-30 students out of 100 staged this "action" tells me that the other 75 or so either did not know, did not approve, or were too scared to participate. That is a lot of non-participators to inconvenience.
As far as the time allowed, as I said earlier in order for schedules to work, soething has to give. This schedule has likely been in place all year, and had to be approved by the Board. So the time to complain about it might have been when it was adopted. We don't know if the students tried to make their complaints known before taking this step. If they did, good for them. If they did not, and this is their initila salvo, then I think the cab driver comparison is a very good one.
Of course, students ALWAYS have the option of bringing something from home, so if there is not enough time in which to eat, that would be the logical solution.

LOL...this actually remidns me of an incident that took place when I was in the 6th grade. A rule was put in place that if you ordered a hot lunch, you had to eat everything on your plate before you could buy dessert. I never bought the hot lunches, I always brown-bagged it, but the kids who did were furious. In the spirit of SDS, they all staged a boycott of the hot lunches by bringing in bag lunches for a week. The rule was eventually rescinded.

Where were the administrators? Lunch ladies are not "in charge" of the lunchroom. I doubt the cashiers had to suffer the wrath of 13 year olds, who were probably laughing their asses off over their fellow students' prank/protest.

avid, I wouldn't call it "wrath". But go man a register during a 30 minute lunch period with 100 middle schoolers and tell me what you'd call it.
"Hell" comes to mind.

Whoa. Wait. Schedule approved by the board? Not in Bloomfield. In Bloomfield... the new administration trashed the BHS school day in favor of their 7 period day with lunches connected to one of several periods during mid-day. Kids complained, including the student rep who attends BOE meetings (by their invite I might add - they invited her, they ask her what's going on from the students' perspectives, and then they ignore her input), but nothing but nothing could stand in the way of the new schedule, which chopped the lunches down to 30 minutes. Adding insult to injury, the scheduling was so lopsided that there are 400-ish kids in one lunch and 600+ in another. Ask the BOE about it, they'll tell you then never approved it. It was the administration's prerogative to change the scheduling.

avid, I don't live in Bloomfield, so I won't dispute your version. However, one of the PRIMARY responsibilities of any board of Education is to approve schedules that are drawn up by administrators. I have never, before your post, heard any Board member say that "we had nothing to do with it". I suspect that some might say that once they perceive that it is unpopular -- it then becomes someone else's fault. So I suspect that the administration devised the schedule, the Board perhaps hastily approved it (because they have to), and now wishes they hadn't (or at least that person wishes they hadn't).

The Superintendents response reads "moreover, the lunchroom workers were treated disrespectfully." I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this. It could mean that the act of using pennies was disrespectful OR it could mean that in addition the using pennies, the students did something else inappropriate, like saying "have fun counting the pennies, you big, fat beyaaaatch!" I would punish the latter, but not the former. I think the whole penny thing is a funny, creative way to make their point. The again I might not be the best judge - I still giggle with my 6 year old whenever either of us rips a loud fart.

Don't forget that there's probably an obligation, both from the Dept of Ed and teacher's union, that there have to be so many minutes of classroom time per year. Speaking hypothetically, if schools are required to provide let's say 37,000 minutes of instruction per school year then it may not be possible to lengthen lunch time (because it would then extend the school day and therefore not jive with the teachers' contract). Seems like the only option would be to stagger the lunches so that not all the kids are in the cafe at the same time waiting to be served.

I see a vision of great commercial for Visa Check Cards. Open on a carefully choreographed and intricate dance sequence, where smiling, happy, gay (scratch gay) students dance around the cafeteria, simultaneously whirling their trays, texting bomb threats, and trying to hook up with the hot lunch ladies as they wave their Visa Check cards in front of the cashier's station.

But then, a group of somber, Goth-like students in soiled AC-DC T-shirts crash the line and try to pay with ... Pennies!

Chaos breaks out! Food fights, racial slurs, and other felonious absurdities occur; weapons are brandished; there is some blood; background music switches to minor key.

Finally, Official School Officials (in Official School Official cheap suits), dance to the rescue, waving their personal Visa Check cards to pay for the protesters' Twinkies and Dr. Peppers. Rhythms and cadences are immediately restored to their previous levels. Cut!

Did we get it in in 30 seconds? Good! Print it!

"http://www.boomspeed.com/kmartta/lunchladies.jpg"
Ladies Who Lunch

Conan -- I like it! But remember, recent legislation will require that the Dr. Pepper's and Twinkies be replaced with vitamin water and granola bars.

It may be a subtle difference grammatically, but "hot lunch ladies" and "hot-lunch ladies" may have more in common than just a broken hyphen.

No one argues with the Grammarian, but where are the "ladies", I believe those four in the picture have adams apples.

You beat me to the commercial. I was having a conversation with the SO earlier generated by the fact that there were two articles in the news about school lunches. The other was on the stigma of subsidized lunch programs (kids skipping lunch or paying anyway) which led to the concept of the Visa spot.
Seriously, it would take the stigma out of it as the status of the payee would be unknown, rather than 2 different lines or a "special" ID. Just make the card mandatory across the board. (Does this mean we can split the profits?)

Mr. Duck,

Are you suggesting that there is "no such thing as a free lunch" and therefore, we should profit from that?
Okay, fine. Work it out and send me a check. Uh, make that cash, please.

And, BTW, I didn't even look at the video Ms. Martta posted -- I will when I get home -- I just detected an opportunity for a bad hyphen pun.

It was only a pic, so you might sneak it in.

As far as the other matter we weren't talking about, I'll have my lawyer, J. Cheever Loophole, call your lawyer and maybe we can do "lunch"

Conan, you are much to funny to be a lawyer. so 'fess up, what's your real job, really.

Duck - Montclair already has the lunch card for anyone who wants to set up a pre-paid account, and I believe the students who have subsidized meals use it too, though I don't know if the physical card looks different. I love it because I load my kid's card a couple time a year and don't have to worry about lunch money.

croiagusanam, I will decline your invitation to read the last thirty years of school law. Is it your position that Tinker has been overruled? In that case, the court held that otherwise protected speech could not be curtailed in a school "at least if it could not be justified by a showing that the students' activities would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school." Okay, that one's too old for you (although it's good law -- I guess you just don't like it). How about Morse v. Frederick (2006) ("Our cases make clear that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." (agknowledging that speech advocating drug use was not protected)). Or what about Walker v. Leonard, (3d Cir. 2003) (in order for expressive conduct to lose constitutional protection, it must "materially disrupt[] classwork or involve[] substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others").

So, which is it, croiagusanam? (1) Tinker's been overruled since the Third Circuit cited to it in 2003? (2) Paying for your lunch with pennies "materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others"? Or, in the alternative, you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about?

***OUT OF OFFICE REPLY ***

"...I'll have my lawyer, J. Cheever Loophole, call your lawyer and maybe we can do lunch.'"

Have him call my personal attorney, Rufus T. Flywheel:

MISS DIMPLE: "Law offices of Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel. You want to speak to Mr. Ravelli? He's not in now, Madam. Mr. Flywheel's here. Oh, you don't want to speak to Mr. Flywheel?"

GROUCHO: "Who doesn't want to speak to Mr. Flywheel? Give me that phone, Miss Dimple. I'll show her a thing or two. So, Madam, you don't want to speak to me? No, this isn't Ravelli. This is Flywheel. 'F' like in Flywheel, 'l' like in fly, 'y' like in Flywheel, 'wheel' like in wheel cutlet, and 'fly' like in milk. Listen, Madam, I'll have none of your lip, but I'll take an ear of corn. Goodbye!"

(Door opens)

MRS. BRITTENHOUSE: Oh, Mr. Flywheel, I simply love the things you say.

* * * * *

As do I. Is it possible to have both William F. Buckley, Jr., and Groucho Marx as one's literary heroes?

Well, john, I'd refer you to the NJ Bar Association web site, among others, wherein it is noted that students, while enjoying Constitional rights, have them "significantly limited" in school contexts. This is particularly true when conduct or speech is found to be "disruptive" or non conducive to the educational mission. It is why newspapers can be censored. It is why shirts and the like can be prohibited. It is why any disruption can result in suspensions or expulsion hearings, though of course students and their parents have rights in those procedures.
So yes, john, you'd better do some more reading. Maybe right there at the web site. And you might want to lose the enormous chip on your shoulder while you do so.

And john, should your internet connection be down, amazon.com will gladly rush you Alexander and Alexander's (Kern and M.David) AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL LAW, Third Edition.
Give it a browse and come back when you have a clue.

was this the kid's idea or one of the parents, does anyone know?

i think it was a great way to protest. nothing illegal, nothing truly disruptive. a smart administrator would install an automatic change counter, no?

(as shoprite would no doubt do if this were a common occurrence-money is money)

I still have no idea of exactly what, if anything, the kids were protesting, or whether they started the penny-payment day as a protest at all. This story is a micro-example of how piss-poor journalism has become insofar as relating basic facts is concerned.

I'd like to pay for something journalistic in pennies to protest this increasing sloppiness, but I get all my news for free these days. Maybe this is another example of "you get what you pay for."

According to the local paper, the kids were protesting a "shortened" lunch period. But it is not clear when it was shortened, how much it was shortened by, or if it was just on this particular day of the week or all days. You're right. The reporting is not great. It is also not stated whether this was the first hint of the protest, or whether people had made their dissatisfaction known beforehand and this was therefore a last straw.
As far as installing automatic change counters well, that would assume that the administrators had prior knowledge that this was going to occur (which they did not, judging from the brouhaha which ensued), and that those types of funds are available for them to use for such a purpose, which I'm quite sure they're not.

I say, take a letter to my lawyers!
Well I am taking it!
Honorable Charles H., uh, Hungerdunger, care of Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, and McCormick... semicolon.
How do you spell semicolon?
All right, make it a comma.
Honorable Charles. H. Hungerdunger, care of Hunger...
Gentlemen, question mark?

Like no other Conan. I also like the political cartoon with two people watching the tube with some current pundits saying "I miss Buckley."