My name is Essie and I'll be your server today.

Wouldn't you think that a hungry child would show up for free breakfast? Evidently, that's not the case.

Students in seven Dallas schools now get free breakfast served to them in the classroom because they don't show up at the lunchroom to get it. Eighty-six percent of Dallas ISD students qualify for free or reduced-price school breakfast and lunch. Only 40% of them were taking advantage of the free breakfast. Now, if I were to think logically, I would think to myself, "Gosh, maybe these kids aren't that hungry and don't need free breakfast. Since they don't want it, we can cut the expense here by about half." But we live in an age where thinking logically is a rarity. The way the DISD thinking goes is, "Even though these kids obviously don't need it, we have to keep this program alive, because if we don't, we won't get the money to do free breakfast, so what we'll do is serve the kids in the classroom." That means they've added expenses to hire additional people and buy equipment to cart the meals to the individual classrooms in insulated containers.

So instead of saving money on a program that's demonstrably not needed, they've spent even more to try to show that it is needed. Anyway, they should get Michelle Obama on their case and hire a new dietician. The meal they were served on the day the reporter was there was 2 whole-grain pancakes with syrup, sausage, chocolate milk, and orange juice. And that supposedly meets federal nutritional standards. Wish my doctor would let me have chocolate milk, pancakes with syrup, and sausage for breakfast.

"Here, it's OK to eat at your desk." The Dallas Morning News; May 18, 2011; p. 6B.