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CLARE—Public schools in the Mid-Michigan city of Clare recently privatized their food service, for estimated savings of $180,000 per year, in the face of strenuous opposition by the Michigan Education Association, which sent representatives to organize protests against the move.
Taking over food service for Clare Public Schools is Chartwells School Dining Services, a subsidiary of an international food service vendor. Superintendent Thomas Moline reports that the contract with Chartwells is for five years, renewable annually, and will offer students a range of five different school lunches daily, instead of the single lunch offered to all students before privatization.
In a letter to the editor of the Review, Clare’s newspaper, Clare High School alumnus Louis Blouin characterized the move as being motivated by a desire to “undermine the rights of workers … and hand over even more of our taxpayer dollars to yet another huge multinational corporation.”
