Ridgewood Schools ban outside food deliveries
January 7,2014
the staff of the Ridgewood blogRidgewood NJ, Ridgewood Schools ban outside food deliveries effective January 13,2014.
In a recent letter dated January 6th Superintendent Daniel Fishbein went to great lenghts to outline his reasoning for the discontinuance of outside vendor lunch deliveries to the schools.
In a recent letter dated January 6th Superintendent Daniel Fishbein went to great lenghts to outline his reasoning for the discontinuance of outside vendor lunch deliveries to the schools.
Fishbein cited three main issues with out side food deliveries : 1) delivery vehicles are often parked illegally ,2) strangers coming in and out of the building and 3) meal delivery causes clutter and is often disruptive to classes.
Fishbien said he recognized it was an inconvenience but that the disruption and safety issued out weighted .
As long as this applies to the teachers and administrators lounges, i.e. everybody, fine.
I think it’s stupid though.
I agree. If safety is the issue, ban food deliveries for everyone.
It is safety, but also (if you can believe it) logistical complexity that is becoming too much for the individual schools to handle. I just got done speaking to one of the elementary school principals on the east side of town about this problem. Word is that the worst problem is actually at west side elementary schools like Ridge and Willard where large crates are being delivered by third party vendors. With the great increase in use of third party lunch vendors just in the past year, the inevitable mistakes in terms of screwed up deliveries have been increasing just as much (we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t…etc.). Ultimately it falls to the school office staff to iron out these problems in real time in an effort to prevent the children involved from going without any lunch to eat. It is at least arguable that this is asking too much of them on a daily basis (never really was in their job description anyway) and we parents need to find a way to work this out that does not unduly burden the school staff.
Teacher have a union, Students don’t. that said the ban sounds reasonable. I cannot see why people can’t pick up lunch before school.
Ridge is the school where the parents won’t get out of the car to bring the kids to school. They probably order while waiting in their cars for the line to move.
Surprised that they send out for lunch? It is just a part of the parenting competition. Outside of the school no one cares about their parenting sport. Once the kids get to GW they are just part of the daily scrum.
its all about money. school lunch sales are down because they can’t compete with the deli’s lunches in quality and price.
why we were told that new Michelle Obama diet was the hot ticket at RHS , what happened?
No one refuses to get out of their car to take their kids to school at Ridge. Lets keep the comments about the topic and not start making negative remarks about groups of people at a school that (I am guessing based on the comment) that you do not attend. If its truly a safety issue then by all means, no outside vendors.
True safety – don’t park on both sides of the road in front of the school.
Agreed.
But its ‘for the kids’ so mommy is going to park her SUV wherever she wants with ZERO consideration for anyone but herself.
Since we’re on the subject of “security risks,” when are members of the BOE going to take their heads out of the sand and finally deal head on with the issue of schools serving as polling places on election days? Many municipalities have moved voting booths out of schools, or closed schools on all election days. Do we feel as though we’re immune to a tragedy taking place in Ridgewood?
Let’s face it folks, there’s more to this policy change than simply concerns over security & traffic issues. “Strangers” make deliveries to schools everyday. Next thing you know, Fishbein will want to ban uniformed FedEx, UPS, and USPS employees from entering school buildings.
The reason for the demand for outside food is due to poor quality offerings by the school vendor – plain and simple, just ask the kids. Of course, the public sector chooses to eliminate competition and regulate behavior rather than solve the problem. Welcome to the real world kids – now learn from it, and change it.
We’ll probably never really know what the issue is here. SECURITY is a classic way people try to strengthen their argument when there is little else to support it.
If the issue really was security, there are solutions to that. Lets start with Pomtonian itself…who are the people that work and deliver for them? How do we know one of them isn’t a threat? The answer of course is that we don’t. What has hopefully(!) happened is that there are policies and procedures – background checks and ID cards I would think, that the Pomptonian people have to go through so we can minimize the possibility of problems. Why not simply have the other vendors go through the same thing and have the same privileges?
It is absurd that kids have to have vendors to bring in lunch. There is a food service and what happened to bringing your lunch to school. My mom used to make me lunch to take to school. Don’t mothers do that anymore?
It is absurd that kids have to have vendors to bring in lunch. There is a food service and what happened to bringing your lunch to school. My mom used to make me lunch to take to school. Don’t mothers do that anymore?