Sickening.

The fact of the matter is this: If you have a majority Jewish population in a given area, the chances that the schools could have a Kosher menu is 100%.
If you have a majority Muslim population in a given area, the chances of a Halal menu is 100 %. There is no difference,in principal, that I can tell, between a Kosher and a Halal menu. I will gladly consume Kosher and Halal products, as I believe they are safer and more wholesome than much of the garbage produced for human consumption by all these food comglomerates. Yes...they may be a little more expensive, but that is the price of quality, and, BTW...at one major corporate food store in this fair city, which I will not name, I saw an "Amish" chicken in the meat dept. selling for over 14 dollars....one chicken. You can walk into any private meat mkt. in the east end and buy similar chickens for a lot less.

I almost forgot to mention...that grocer where the city contracted with to provide meat for the schools...you quote a price of 228,000 dollars. Is this enough meat to provide meals to all the schools which will have a Halal menu > If so, you will find that you will probably see a higher price than that one if the city contracted a meat supply deal with any of the unnamed, by me, corporate food entities in this country. BUT, was this a no-bid contract ? If so, then we need a Justice Dept investigation of why other local meat distributers/merchants were side-stepped.

So, we can offer meals that cater to religious prohibitions, but still refuse to remove peanut butter from school lunches in locations where children have life-threatening allergies??? Religion takes precedence over health and safety? What answer does Jeff Murphy and Dave Mustonen have to this issue?

I sometimes wonder how thay handle this.... at schools like Country Day where the students are very diverse.. And Plymouth/Canton where there are alot of Muslim living there also....I remember when in school the Jewish kids had no problem eating with us....I think the variety was good for everyone..I feel this is not an exspense of ours as a tax payer for the schools in this city.....And not ever having any children go to school...This issue should be thought out that the price of the more exspensive meat should be an exspense of the parents involved in these specialty foods...I would like to know if they are offering special foods for diabetics and people that are lactose intollerence...And i am sure others that can't eat the foods we serve...The cost of this meat is should not be another exspense for the citizens of Dearborn we have many more problems here...Like getting our childrens scores up...Better skills being taught to the children...Getting more diversity wanting to join our schools..Making our schools one of the most destinguished schools to learn in...Not the meat we serve and why....Do we need to change some more school board memebers..????? Let's move in a more productive way...

Let their parents buy their own halal slop with their bridge cards and make 'em brown bag a lunch. Problem solved, money saved.

Now, duck's blood soup...thats what I call slop.

Simply privitize the food service, and charge accordingly. If Halal food costs more, charge more. Keep us tax payers out of it.

Regarding peanut butter, kids know if they are allergic to peanuts. Why deprive peanut lovers of a nutritional treat. Perhaps their parents could advise their kids not to eat peanuts. Why? Because it makes you sick. Why, because you have defective genes. Why? Go ask you mother......

Problem with Halal as opposed to Kosher is that Halal is offered up to Allah and Christians and Jews aren't supposed to eat food offered to other gods. But the REAL problem is that money spent on Halal food goes to Shariah compliant banks and Zakat is paid on that... 1/8 of Zakat goes to "In the way of Allah" which is JIHAD!! That is why this is unacceptable!

Some people are just stupid including k kafir.

Dear Kelly, What evidence do you have to support your statement that money spent on Halal food goes to "Shariah" banks ? I'm waiting. And provide evidence that 1/8 of of that money is turned over to whatever authority is in charge of collecting that "Zakat". While Islamic style banks employ Zakat as an intrest substitute, I would prefer to pay 1/8th % "intrest" on a loan than the average rate I pay to a US bank. I would say that you can provide no evidence because even Sharia complient banks charge more than 1/8th %. Also for your information, Allah is no different than the God of the Jews and Christians. If a prayer is offered up to Allah, at the time of slaughter, it is because the taker of the animals life must give thanks to Allah...(God), for the creation of that animal, because it gives us sustanence, and to offer up an apology for the takeing of that creature's life. Ask a Rabbi if the same isn't done in Kosher slaughter houses. When you find out, write back.

Here is a possible solution, automated vending lunch machines. They can even be programmed to say the proper prayer , so religious values are maintained. Best of all, the taxpayers are out of the loop cost wise as it is private enterprise, once again, to the rescue.
http://www.technewsdaily.com/3036-vending-machines-for-healthy-foods.html

Lee, it is not required to say a prayer by someone merely eating a Halal dish. The prayer must be said at the time of the slaughter of an animal, by the butcher killing the animal. Anyway, prayer cannot be automated. It would have no meaning/value to the Supreme Being recieving that prayer. Prayer is only required when slaying animals. It is not required while harvesting plants. So no prayers are to be offered for the ingredients for making a loaf of bread or a pie or something like that. However, we should all give thanks to God for the creation of these plants in our daily/weekly worship.

Private enterprise to the rescue like the multi trillion dollar wall St bank bail out. lee Jacbson is either joking or the most naive person in Dearborn. Give me a break, how would you feed 300 kids with vending machines.

Frank, it was 'tongue-in-cheek' , and even private enterprise has a hard time keeping up with the examples of govt waste out there, but, if you read the article, each vending machine can serve 90 meals before being restocked for the next wave of hungry students. The machines can be programed to read the student ID cards , and provide a properly blessed meal (sticker certified) according to their faith. If the child picks a improper meal, such as pizza with sausage not Halal blessed, the machine can be programmed to say, Thank you, but choose another. I think Animal House got it right with lunch food.....

They need to convert to an ALL PORK menu - and voila - problem solved.........

To say that private enterprise is any less wasteful than government shows a lack of understanding of simple economic concepts such as externalities and market inefficiencies. It is not a matter of fact that private enterprise is more efficient in every transaction. There are some transactions where government has market advantages. The objective should be to encourage private enterprise to leverage it's comparative advantage and encourage sound accountable public policy to leverage public allocation of resources. China is a command an control economy, with a communist leadership, and it is the fastest growing economy in the world. The US government just bailed out the global financial system because it imploded because of inefficient allocation of capital into unproductive markets. Continually beating the free market drum is not sound economics but a utopian concept. And like all utopian concepts great in theory bad in practice

I think a lot of people who are critical of this are missing a point: the schools do not have to serve halal, nor is it done as an accommodation. This is a business decision. In the absence of halal lunches many Muslim students are not eating school lunches but rather are bringing lunch from home (regardless of whether the lunch is subsidized - the school district is still compensated). The halal lunches are brought in because they 'sell.'

For those attacking this from a 'separation of church and state' angle, I attended Dearborn Public Schools K through 12 and as I recall there was NEVER a Friday where meat was served.

Frank, actually, outside of basic defense, (which Obama is cutting) can you name any three government operations, ok, even one, where the govt is more efficient that private enterprise? The key word is 'efficient'. The govt, instead of letting the consumer dictate demand, tends to use a heavy hand towards questionable goals, we all want 'green' energy, but no one wants a windmill in their back yard, we want efficient vehicles according to the govt, but yet our govt official in charge of this doesn't even own a car. What happens when the $17,000 govt subsidy is removed from the Volt, would you pay $52 thou for a compact car?
Centuries of oil exist in Canada, yet the govt can't figure out whether to let a pipe line go to Texas, or go to China? We need some govt folk with some smarts.
At least with food vending lunch machines, kids can have a choice, and if they want meat on Friday, all they have to do is enter their student ID, override the 'fish only' command, and go for it!

Things that the government can do more efficiently than the private sector include allocation of resources to build infrastructure. The panama canal, intercontinental railroad, interstate highway system, rural electrification were all private enterprise systems that failed and had to be managed financed and completed by government. The Internet was created with public dollars not private, the only reason the south has industry today is not because right to work gives them a comparative advantage but because billions of dollars of public resources was redistributed from the industrial north to the rural south to build roads, educate workers, electrify towns, control flooding, and provide sewage. None of which would have been done by the allocation of private capital because the roi was not there. Public resources effectively managed compliment and advance the private sector. Private management of capital is subject to many externalities and market inefficiencies that make certain transactions less competitive than the public sector. Roads, education, future technologies, infrastructure, flood control, water and sewage, and public safety. Lastly if the government did not subsidize the production,delivery and distribution of petroleum than the volt would be much more attractive. Renewable energy holds many comparative advantages over carbon based fuels when the total transactional costs are adequately and fairly compared.

Frank, sorry, but the 'trans' not 'inter' continental railroad was built by private enterprise, the Central Pacific, and Union Pacific railroad. A link is here.....
http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-c-2011-09-23-255945.112112-Obama-again-reveals-his-ignorance.html

Your other examples also fail the smell test of efficiency. The government simply became the contractor for these projects, it was up to private enterprise to make them happen. In fact, Jimmy Carter gave the Panama Canal back to the Panama folks, that's a real efficient use of govt resources.

The question was whether who was more effiecient in an operation, defined as an ability to produce a product. The govt blunders its way through organizing national projects, but making them, no way are they efficient. Even Obama figured that out and cancelled the Shuttle program, and said, "let private enterprise lead the way". If that govt lunch vending machine was govt made, no way would it be in a school unless the govt funded a grant to provide them at a million each. All the food would probably be to military standards, to show some form of cross use and savings. Then they could use them on military bases as well.

The trans continental railroad could not have been built without government loan guarantees for each mile of track built, massive land grants, and federal protection of railroad right of ways. Private equity was simply inadequate to undertake such a project. That is the premise of my argument. Government has comparative advantages over private enterprise and equity in the marketplace when the objective require large capital investments, high risk, unproven technologies, and the costs cannot adequately be charged back to the users. If the government is the general contractor, guarantor, financier, or retail provider in the marketplace it is irrelevant. They fulfill a role that private allocation of resources is inadequate to do. Yes the government may deliver certain services or goods at a higher dollar amount than a private contractor. However that is because with public money there are political considerations that increase the cost of delivery.

I was wrong in one calculation in an article I deleted to correct.
For those interested in these types of trivia, 375.00 in 1861 dollars is the equivalent of around 9000.00 dollars today. Goods purchased in 1861 for 16.00 would cost around 375 today. The cost of that land my gg grandfather bought in 1861 was worth almost what most families of that era earned for almost the whole year. Mayby a little less.

The govt essentially stole the land from the Indians, who no doubt stole it from someone else way before our times. The point is, the govt did nothing but give the land as an incentive to build the railroads. Private enterprise built the railroad, govt was an enabler.
The question was who was more efficient at producing product.? The govt certainly didn't lay any tracks. Private companies did.
Who can make the best bowl of soup in Dearborn? School services or private enterprise?