MANHATTAN. Posters promoting the city school system’s “healthy, great tasting and free” summer meals program are plastered around the subways.
Hundreds of schools, parks and pools serve breakfast and lunch to children under age 19 through Aug. 31, they say. But Metro has learned that at nearly 140 schools, the meals will stop up to three weeks early.
“The meals program is supposed to go all summer,” said Adofo Muhammed, principal at MS 143 in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He pointed to the Dept. of Education’s Web site listing Aug. 31 as the last day.
At his school, however, there won’t be any meals after Aug. 10, when summer school ends.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” he said when reached in his office yesterday. A number of schools in the area serve the free meals, he said, “but now I don’t know which ones will be open.”
DOE spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said the meal programs end at schools when their summer classes end. Some end earlier than others as “this is the first year we’ve allowed principals to design their own summer school programs because we’re empowering principals,” she said.
“There will be no kids in the school to use the [meals] program since those schools will be closed,” Feinberg said. “But there are several other sites in the neighborhood within walking distance that will be serving meals.”
Principals “should talk to their custodians” to find out when their schools are open, Feinberg said. If parents or students find their school shuttered, she said they can call 311 for other sites.
“The right hand of the DOE doesn’t seem to be able to talk to its left hand,” said John Collins, spokesman for Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, whose office is expected to release a list today of all summer meal sites. “Principals and parents clearly haven’t been given the information they need to plan.”
Where to eat
This summer’s program budget has grown to $23 million from last year’s $22 million — most is reimbursed by the federal government. Last year, 2 million breakfasts and 4.5 million lunches were served. Public libraries, housing projects and day camps now participate, upping locations to 1,166 from 966 last year.
