Lilacs4Me
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2015
We have custody/fostering guardianship of our great-nephew, who is 12. With that status, he has a DCFS case and is automatically enrolled in Medicaid, which automatically enrolls him in Free Lunch. With Free Lunch, our school district also waives the registration fees and any academic-related fees such as field trips.
Nephew brought home a permission slip last week and asked me why he would be free when all the other kids had to pay. Apparently he overheard his teacher talking to another teacher about it. I vaguely told him not to worry about it and I would make sure everything was taken care of for him.
He went to school the next day and told his teacher that I didn't know why he was free and that we wanted to know. She proceeded to have the discussion with him that he was free because he was on the public aid program. So he came home with more questions, sigh.
We specifically did not share the information about Medicaid or Free Lunch with him for a variety of reasons, first (not in any particular order) because drugs, alcohol, instability, run-ins with the law, and collecting welfare instead of working was the norm with the adults in his previous life and we are trying to show him there is a different path out there, and 2nd because he and DS12 are the same age, in the same grade, and we didn't want Nephew to feel different, and 3rd, he doesn't understand the politics or PR of things, and we didn't want him to talk about it to middle school kids who are very likely to only have a negative connotation about "welfare" and we don't want Nephew to get bullied or teased.
We let Nephew pick whether he wants to bring a lunch or buy one, and there is a little debit card ALL the kids get and have to use in the cafeteria, so no matter if we load money onto the card, or the kids get free lunch, it makes no difference and nobody knows. Field Trip money can be sent in in a sealed envelope or paid directly on the website. I usually just pay online for DS12, so neither of their envelopes have money inside, just the signed permission slip.
Is it me, or is this something teachers shouldn't be discussing in front of, or with, students? (I've already had the talk with Nephew about me handling adult discussions with teachers directly and he is not to go to them himself)
Teachers out there - what would you have done in this situation, if a student came up and asked you about this type of thing?
Nephew brought home a permission slip last week and asked me why he would be free when all the other kids had to pay. Apparently he overheard his teacher talking to another teacher about it. I vaguely told him not to worry about it and I would make sure everything was taken care of for him.
He went to school the next day and told his teacher that I didn't know why he was free and that we wanted to know. She proceeded to have the discussion with him that he was free because he was on the public aid program. So he came home with more questions, sigh.
We specifically did not share the information about Medicaid or Free Lunch with him for a variety of reasons, first (not in any particular order) because drugs, alcohol, instability, run-ins with the law, and collecting welfare instead of working was the norm with the adults in his previous life and we are trying to show him there is a different path out there, and 2nd because he and DS12 are the same age, in the same grade, and we didn't want Nephew to feel different, and 3rd, he doesn't understand the politics or PR of things, and we didn't want him to talk about it to middle school kids who are very likely to only have a negative connotation about "welfare" and we don't want Nephew to get bullied or teased.
We let Nephew pick whether he wants to bring a lunch or buy one, and there is a little debit card ALL the kids get and have to use in the cafeteria, so no matter if we load money onto the card, or the kids get free lunch, it makes no difference and nobody knows. Field Trip money can be sent in in a sealed envelope or paid directly on the website. I usually just pay online for DS12, so neither of their envelopes have money inside, just the signed permission slip.
Is it me, or is this something teachers shouldn't be discussing in front of, or with, students? (I've already had the talk with Nephew about me handling adult discussions with teachers directly and he is not to go to them himself)
Teachers out there - what would you have done in this situation, if a student came up and asked you about this type of thing?
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