School Board Hit for Ruling on Lunch Hour

Jewish high school students who during the lunch hour would like to go out for some kosher food have no opportunity to do so because of the Board of Education’s policy of keeping pupils in the buildings throughout the school day, Samuel Katz, president of the Triboro -Metropolitan Tobacco, Stationery and Candy Stores Association, charged yesterday.

The association is up in arms against the Board of Education, claiming that it is trying to compete with the merchants’ business by selling school lunches. Katz claimed that even though children are permitted to bring lunches of their own, this practice is discourage in favor of buying at the school counter.

Such a policy is ruining the trade of many shops in school neighborhoods, Katz charged. He said that all the association asks is that students be permitted to make a choice of their own in the matter.

Katz further claimed that some school principals at lunch time take special pains to compel pupils not to buy in the stores and do business with the school lunch counter.

“Taxpayers are supporting the Board for educational purposes and not for setting it up in business,” Katz declared.

A parade to the city hall, which was to be staged by the association yesterday, did not materialize because of Mayor LaGuardia’s absence. A protest meeting will be held on April 24, at 350 Flatbush Avenue Extension, Brooklyn.

The association is seeking an in vestigation of the board’s policy by the Commissioner of Accounts.

In a letter to the organization, Dr. Harold G. Campbell, superintendent of schools, wrote that since the principals are required to provide proper safeguards for the pupils’ health and safety, they require children to be at designated and definitely known places throughout the school day.