School Lunch Separates the Haves, Have-Nots : Nutrition: While the needy line up for free, reduced-price standard fare, wealthier children dine a la carte on fast food.

The days of cooked-from-scratch school lunches are giving way to a la carte lines, fast food and, anti-hunger activists worry, more hungry children.

As food and labor costs increase and government commodities dwindle, financially strapped cafeteria managers are looking for new ways to make ends meet.

In a few schools that have decided that it is easier to prepare lunch without the government’s help, the low-income children who were getting a free or reduced-price lunch may not eat all day, the activists say.

Nutritionists, meanwhile, worry that the trend toward processed foods, which are generally higher in fat, sugar and sodium, comes at a time when the government is promoting healthier school lunches.

The problem, officials say, is that while federal subsidies cover the costs of providing a free meal to students from low-income families, the payments do not go far enough when it comes to fixing a full-price meal bought by better-off students.

The situation is particularly acute in wealthy districts where there may be few low-income children getting a free meal, officials said.

“A lot of people are questioning whether they want to maintain the federal lunch program, and all its various requirements, just for a small segment of the population,” said Annette Bomar, director of the division of school and community nutrition for the Georgia Department of Education.

Audrey Love, clerical assistant at the Berean Elementary and Greater Atlanta Adventist Academy, said the Seventh-day Adventist school dropped out of the program because too few of its low-income students were participating.

“Even through you try to keep it as private as possible, a lot of the kids knew that some were free and some were reduced, and with high school students that made a big difference,” Love said.

Now, students who cannot pay for meals are allowed to charge them and the cafeteria manager lets them pay half-price, Love said.

But neither alternative has been without problems.

The government gives the schools subsidies and commodities worth $1.80 for a free meal and $1.40 for a reduced-price meal, but just 30 cents for each paid meal, according to the American School Food Service Assn.

The average charge for a full-price meal nationwide is $1 to $1.25.

So cafeterias are saving money by buying more processed foods, which cuts their labor costs, said a Senate aide. And they make money selling items a la carte at higher prices compared to what they get for a full meal prepared according to the requirements of the national school lunch program.

That means the better-off children buy hamburgers, fries or pizza in the a la carte line while the low-income children go through the hot-lunch line.

“We’re almost seeing a division of the haves and the have-nots,” Bomar said. “The kids come to school the same, but at lunch you separate them out. It’s not an obvious situation, but the kids know.”

The School Food Service Assn. contends the national school lunch program, run by the Agriculture Department, is in jeopardy. A survey by the association, whose 67,000 members run school food and child nutrition programs, found that 90 schools in 14 states dropped out of the program in 1989-90.

The latest survey, for 1990-91, is expected to find that about 90 more schools in 13 states have dropped out. In the same period, however, 1,100 schools joined the program, the Agriculture Department said.

And although 180 schools would account for a tiny fraction of the 92,461 schools that participated last year, the food service organization worries that the trend is a bellwether, said Kevin Dando, government affairs specialist.