This year’s tips have taken a turn for the practical. Last year’s tips — I recommend new teachers visit last August and September in particular — were targeted mostly to new teachers and revolved around getting started in teaching. But as I try to write a book out here and think about my experiences, I am beginning to mix a more eclectic flavor into the 2016 offerings.

Readers, how do you like your green beans? I’ll bet no one out there answered, “Cooked for hours until they are mushy and kind of gray-green, preferably without salt, butter or seasoning.” Yet that’s what many schools are feeding their students. The new food guidelines came in and the butter, salt and cheese sauce went away in many places. The chips vanished. The vending machines were turned off until after school hours. I have vented about these lunches before, with their six ounces (tops) of baked chicken, unseasoned rice and mushy vegetables. Student then get to pick small carrot bags or apples to add to their trays.

Some schools are still serving tasty lunches. I learned that while subbing last year. A district with money can work within the guidelines and come up with tasty sandwiches. For that matter, some schools are still serving pizza and ice cream. Maybe they don’t need federal funds. I never asked.

But getting circuitously back to my tip: I have watched mountains of food thrown away. I have commiserated with the custodial staff as they cleaned up around the overflowing garbage cans. In a previous post, I believe I even recommended that schools seek out pig farmers to see if they might want feed donations.

Here is what I want to recommend to teachers: If Joaquin or Shaniqua are throwing away their lunch every day, call home. A free/reduced price lunch is no lunch if the kid never eats that lunch. Talk to mom, dad or whoever gets the kids off in the morning. Suggest sending a bag lunch to school in this situation. A cheese sandwich with a boxed apple juice will be better than no lunch at all. Heck, a butter sandwich with a Dr. Pepper will be better.

Too often today, kids are eating no or almost no lunch at all. Their trays get dumped after a lunch period spent socializing and cadging chips off some friend who brought food from home. These hungry kids predictably become tired, listless and cranky.

If your school serves those green beans, check with your students about their lunch habits. Do they eat? If they don’t, please step into the gap and help find food for them.

P.S. Middle school and high school teachers may never spend time in their school cafeterias. If you don’t visit the cafeteria, you might create a survey on lunch habits instead. I know what I am suggesting adds to a probably already huge workload, but the improvement in the behavior of your sixth, seventh, eighth etc. period classes should make those phone calls and rewards worth the time. By 2:30, hungry and cranky can turn into ravenous and raging. Full moon or no, the werewolves start coming out.