The quick and the hungry: ID theft used to steal meals

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004 | 10:57 a.m.

Identity theft may have reached a new low -- Clark County School District students are stealing their less-privileged classmates' ID numbers in order to get free lunches paid for through a federal aid program.

It happened again Monday to Western High School freshman Cody Griffith. After waiting patiently in line for his turn to order a sandwich and drink, Griffith recited his school-issued ID number for the cashier. He was told -- incorrectly -- that he had already received his free meal for the day.

"It's whacked," Griffith said. "Kids listen for you to say your number and then the next day they use it because they don't want to pay. It's really mixed up and they (the school) should fix it."

Sue Hoggan, spokeswoman for the district's food services department, said she's aware that such incidents are taking place at various campuses. Several schools are trying out one solution -- issuing photo ID badges to students that are kept on a central database, allowing cafeteria workers to match a face to the number.

The ID numbers are used to protect a student's privacy, Hoggan said. Under the current system the computer only reveals whether a student has meal credits to his name -- it doesn't show whether those credits were paid for in advance by a parent or whether it's part of a federal aid program, Hoggan said.

The pilot program of photo IDs can't be used at Western until the school's main cafeteria is reopened later this month after more than four years of being closed. Unlike the regular cafeteria registers, the mobile carts the school relies on for food service aren't connected to the district's network, Hoggan said.

"We'd like to see the photo IDs in every school as soon as possible and that includes Western," Hoggan said.

This year 17 of the district's 35 high schools are taking part in the National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced-price meals. The district stopped participating in the high school program several years ago because students complained that the offerings -- which had to comply with federal nutritional standards -- weren't tasty enough.

"Kids said they wanted hamburgers and french fries and when we couldn't provide those things they went off-campus to fast food places to get it," Hoggan said.

Since then there have been several changes that left the district in the position of being able to re-enroll in the federal program, Hoggan said. First, after a fatal lunchtime wreck left three students dead, officials decided in 2003 to close the district's metropolitan campuses during the day. And more Las Vegas Valley students are qualifying for free and reduced-price meals as their families struggle economically, Hoggan said.

"We're finding a lot of students just don't have the money to buy lunch," Hoggan said.

Over the summer the Clark County School Board approved new nutritional requirements for schools -- guidelines that are actually stricter than what the federal government demands, Hoggan said. The new high school lunch menus meet those standards, Hoggan said.

Last year, more than 92,000 school lunches were served each school day in Clark County.