San Diego school serves halal food after students go hungry

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A San Diego school added “halal” food to its weekly menu after receiving complaints from Muslim parents who found their children to be going hungry.
The moves comes as part of a pilot programme that aims to serve minority students, which make up majority of the student body at Crawford High School.
Under an Obama administration program, schools qualify for universal free lunches if over 40 per cent of the families of the students qualify for some other federal assistance.
Parents complained to the school administrators that their children were coming home hungry; despite the school offering free lunches to the entire student body.
San Diego Unified’s Food Services Director Gary Petill wondered why, if all the students had access to free food, they were going hungry. It was then discovered that many of the students were not eating because the food was not halal. The school then added halal-approved chili lime chicken bowl to the menu twice a week, after which Petill said that 300 more students were eating on those days.
“It’s Mary’s Free Range, vegetarian-fed, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, air-chilled organic chicken that you’d find in Whole Foods,” Petill said.
He further noted the few cents more it costs per drumstick is offset by the larger number of students eating as schools are reimbursed by the federal government based on the number of meals served.
Even non-Muslim students enjoyed the new offering at the school cafeteria. 17-year-old Rosa Duarte joined her Muslim friends in campaigning for the halal lunches.
“I normally will not eat at school because the food options were not good,” Duarte said. “But with the halal chicken drumstick bowl, I actually am eating at school and I have more energy to go through the day and then go to my sports afterwards.”
Petil said based on early indications, the school district would continue to expand its options to meet the needs and tastes of other minority students going forward.

10 COMMENTS

    • Muslims in the West are not asking for Sharia to be the law of the land. The Law of the land is the only law applicable and executable in affairs of the individuals.

      All they are seeking is to let Sharia be available as an alternative to resolve their spousal and contractual disputes between two individuals. That is their prerogative. Indeed, every human, no matter who it is, goes first to their family members and friends for seeking solutions to their problem some will go to their clergy (all religions) and some will appoint a mediator.

      When Muslims go to their clergy, he or she will look up similar situations in the past and guide the couple or business partners to find a solution, since the immigrant Muslims are familiar with the Sharia laws, they may accept it, and if they do, that is good for them.

      The problem is that of trust – when the parties agree to the terms per their Imam/clergy, and don’t abide by it, there is no way the aggrieved party can seek damages for the violations. This is what Muslims are asking, to make that binding.

      Indeed, it would be binding if they go to the judge and say, we have agreed to these terms and conditions per our religious conviction, and seek the judge to sign the order and the court order becomes executable. The judge looks to it as mediator resolved decision and signs it and it will become executable. The right wing Americans are downright stupid and making a bid deal about this, as if Sharia will become the law of the land.

      What Muslims have is Personal Sharia, that is a private relationship between the individual and God. How they pray, worship, fast, pay zakat, how they bury their individuals, marry per the requirement as a religious rite. All of that is a private matter and does not need any regulation or execution.
      IA http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

  1. "The moves comes as part of a pilot programme that aims to serve minority students, which make up majority of the student body at Crawford High School."

    The West. Where a majority can still be call a 'minority'. Madness.

  2. Muslim children not only need halal meat and Eid Holidays but they need state funded Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their development period also. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school. Legally, the state has an obligation to respect the rights of parents to ensure that 'education and teaching(of their children) is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.' The schools must satisfy the spiritual, moral, social, and cultural needs of Muslim pupils. State schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers are not in a position to satisfy their needs. A good school is not just a knowledge factory or a conveyor belt for churning out exam passes – it is a community, a family. A community is held together by common values and principles.

    No one has any problem when: Jews keep beards and wear their traditional caps Christian priests and nuns wear their religious outfits Buddhist monks wear orange robes Sikhs keep beards and wear turbans Indian aunties wear Sarees (cross streets and hang out in Wal-Mart) Yeah but if any Muslim male keeps beard or if any Muslim girl wears hijab then everyone has problem. It's Freedom when you go naked but it's extremism when you wear hijab – just plain hypocrisy! Looking at the case of France, a major secular nation, I believe it is also not allowing women freedom by not letting her to wear her choice of clothing as it supposedly "clashes with French secular values".

    The British establishment is wrong in thinking that Imams are to blame for extremism. Imams are not solution to the problem for extremism. Extremism is nothing to do with Imams. Extremism is not created from abroad, it is coming from within. Britain fails to help Muslim communities feel part of British society. Race trouble is being predicted by the Daily Express, because of an ethnic boom in UK major cities. Muslim communities need imams for the solutions of their needs and demands in their own native languages. Muslim parents would like to see their children well versed in Standard English and to go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. The fact is that majority of Muslim children leave schools with low grades because monolingual teachers are not capable to teach Standard English to bilingual Muslim children. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit.

    None of 7/7 bombers and British Muslim youths who are in Syria and Iraq are the product of Muslim schools. They are the product of British schooling which is the home of institutional racism with chicken racist native teachers. It is absurd to believe that Muslim schools, Imams and Masajid teach Muslim children anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-western views. It is dangerously deceptive and misleading to address text books and discuss them out of their historical, cultural and linguistic context.

    Bilingual Muslims children have a right, as much as any other faith group, to be taught their culture, languages and faith alongside a mainstream curriculum. More faith schools will be opened under sweeping reforms of the education system in England. There is a dire need for the growth of state funded Muslim schools to meet the growing needs and demands of the Muslim parents and children. Now the time has come that parents and community should take over the running of their local schools. Parent-run schools will give the diversity, the choice and the competition that the wealthy have in the private sector. Parents can perform a better job than the Local Authority because parents have a genuine vested interest. The Local Authority simply cannot be trusted.

    Indiscipline, incivility, binge drinking, drug addiction, gun and knife crimes, teenage pregnancies and abortion are part and parcel of British schooling. These are the reasons why majority of Muslim parents would like to send their children to Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Only less than 10% attend Muslim schools and more than 90% keep on attending state and church schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers.

    The demand for Muslim schools comes from parents who want their children a safe environment with an Islamic ethos. Parents see Muslim schools where children can develop their Islamic Identity where they won't feel stigmatised for being Muslims and they can feel confident about their faith. Muslim schools are working to try to create a bridge between communities. There is a belief among ethnic minority parents that the British schooling does not adequately address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response. State schools with monolingual teachers are not capable to teach English to bilingual Muslim children. Bilingual teachers are needed to teach English to such children along with their mother tongue. According to a number of studies, a child will not learn a second language if his first language is
    ignored.
    IA http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

    • iftikhara what utter crap. they only want these schools so they can be taught from the trechorous koran on the beliefs of the peodophile mohammad. Besides most of the parents dont want them to be intergrated into the countries culture, laws and beliefs so your statement is rubbish. You say that indisipline, incivility, binge drinking, drug addiction, gun and knife crimes, pregnancies and abortion are part and parcel of British schools. Well bugger me, if you do your research a bit better most of these part and parcel offences are commited by muslims and its not just in English schools, it happening all over the world. you must wear blinkers that wont allow you to see what is happening around the world or just dont want to believe that a muslim could break any laws. Rape, murders, beheadings, peodophilia, obductions and slavery, and general hatred to an extent of extermination is brain washed into your youths from babies by your so called educators in your mosques and schools. you do not want to assimilate into countries that took in your so called war torn countries and gave you more benifits than the locals could ever dream of but this wasnt enough for you people, you want the lot, change their laws, religion, way of life ,free speech, the religion and there military.you are the most ungrateful breed of people that god had the misfortune of creating.(and mohammed had nothing to do with it) . So england is offering your children and education so they can become respectful citizens of the country that excepted them, dont ruin their chances and start demanding that the taxpayers of that country build special schools for muslims so they can be taught hate and murder and a false god. Wake up to yourself ,if you dont like what the english are offering you, go back to where you came from and start demanding there, you would last long i bet,.

  3. Halal meat is an abomination because the animals are slaughtered in the most painful, gruesome and slow manner possible. The indifference of Muslims, in general, to the suffering of animals is commonplace. Why lower the hard-won standards of Western quality, especially towards helpless animals, about which we profess to care? And force taxpayers to fund this evil? Where is PETA; where is the Humane Society? OK, enough with the rhetorical questions. Welcome to the United States of Cowards. I am sure the San Diego school district was threatened with a lawsuit and complied without further ado.

  4. No one is “going hungry” in American schools. Our poor people tend to be the fattest people in the country. Somalis are well on their way to having the same kind of health issues as other Americans because they enjoy the bounty of food stamps, free school meals and food banks stocked with food year-round.

    Rather than viewing meat as the luxury item that it is and seeking out other proteins such as nuts or beans, Somalis want an expensive item added to the menu that is costly because special Muslim butchers have to be paid to produce it. This is a ridiculous use of taxpayer money and takes food from the mouths of others who need it. Halal meat is slaughtered so brutally that it is only a matter of time before Americans rise up against it like the Australians have.

  5. This is so true but just think for a while about this that Educational apps are the best way to start your kids education at home. There are many schools in America which provides early educations to your kids in very homely & friendly environment and the teachers also use these apps to help the students better understand the topic.I love the apps that are kid-friendly while also being fun for adults. I may or may not have spent more time playing Apparatus than my 5 year old has… but who needs to know… 🙂

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