Public Schools Face Delays and Possible State Action on Mandatory Hot Lunch Program-August 31, 1973

Parents of elementary school students in Norwood will need to continue packing brown-bag lunches for the start of the academic year. School Superintendent Philip O. Coakley announced that the town will fail to meet the state-mandated September deadline for implementing a universal public school hot lunch program, exposing the municipality to potential legal action by the state attorney general’s office.

Supply Delays and Administrative Hurdles

The system-wide lunch initiative—which relies on a satellite system centered at the Balch School, equipped with a walk-in freezer and heating ovens to ferry ready-to-serve meals to other facilities—has stalled due to supply chain issues. A Rhode Island-based firm contracted to supply ovens and refrigerators has experienced severe manufacturing and delivery delays, while the town has yet to officially award a contract to a food service vendor to supply the prepackaged meals.

School Committee Chairman Rudith M. Berkowitz expressed surprise at the equipment delay, speculating that labor strikes or overwhelming regional demand might be to blame. She noted that because the town manager serves as the municipal purchasing agent, the school committee has faced disadvantages in tracking contract bids, despite having completed specifications well before the special town meeting in May appropriated $115,000 for equipment and a transport truck (with 75 percent reimbursable by the federal government, netting a town cost of $29,000).

State Refuses Extensions and Threatens Legal Action

Under a 1970 state law mandating public school lunch programs, John Stalker, food services director for the State Department of Education, stated that the statute contains no provisions for waivers or deadline extensions. Because the law sets a general September target, the department established September 30 as the strict cutoff point.

Stalker warned that names of all non-compliant towns will be forwarded directly to the attorney general’s office for potential legal action. Citing the precedent set with Boston the previous year, Stalker noted the attorney general could threaten a lawsuit or force tardy school systems to purchase cold lunches from outside caterers. Superintendent Coakley confirmed he requested an extension from the state but has received no response.

While existing hot lunch programs at the Senior High School, Junior High North, and Callahan School will resume when classes start on Wednesday, seven elementary schools must wait:

• Winslow School
• Oldham School
• Shattuck School
• Balch School
• Willett School
• Cleveland School
• Prescott School

When asked if parents would be notified of the delay before Wednesday, Chairman Berkowitz remarked, “I hadn’t thought of that. It might be a good idea,” though she expressed belief that most families anticipated packing lunches anyway.

Anticipated Milk Price Hike

Adding to family expenses, Norwood school children who bring lunches from home may face a steep 6-cent increase in the price of milk, jumping from 4 cents to 10 cents per half-pint container. Chairman Berkowitz indicated the hike is driven by rising supplier costs and congressional delays in reauthorizing federal food subsidies, which under current House versions remove price supports for a la carte milk. For a family with two children buying milk daily, the increase would raise annual milk costs from $14.40 to $36.00—or up to $72.00 if recess milk is included. Furthermore, soaring food costs and static federal meal subsidies are forcing Norwood to explore cost-saving measures to preserve the current 30-cent school lunch price.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger