Like a lot of folks interested in school lunch, I started following Mrs. Q's fascinating blog in early 2010. As part of my beat at the Chicago Tribune, I was covering school lunches. Mrs. Q was offering an inside look from the belly of the beast.
Her blog "Fed Up With Lunch" seemed like a natural fit for a story. She had done an interview with a small online site and I hoped she would consider one with the Tribune, too.
Eventually, she dropped her anonymity, wrote a book, appeared this week on television and consented to the Chicago Tribune interview. But that wasn't how this all started.
I left a message on her site and we started corresponding, even making appointments to meet a few times. Each time, Q got cold feet.
One attempt even included a morning milling around a chess tournament at Whitney Young High School, making eye contact with teachery-looking types, when I mistakenly thought she'd suggested we meet there. She later said that wasn't what she'd meant to imply.
But her leeriness was clear.
I had been hungrily reading her blog, along with folks from all over the world. It could have been written from "Anywhere, America," and here she was right under my nose. "Q" was actually teaching less than a mile from my home. Now that I know she's a Chicago Public School teacher, I understand her fear.
I inquired with the Chicago Public Schools about the district's potential response should, say, any of the system's teachers decide to take a picture of his/her own lunch and post it online. Representatives would only say that lawyers for the Chicago Teachers Union would have to counsel that teacher. That seemed frightening enough.
When I finally met Sarah Wu last week, I could see how important the project was to her. She said that she feared a Chicago Tribune article could have resulted in a witch hunt instructing all lunch room managers to report back on teachers who were regularly buying lunch. Under such an investigation, even this mild-mannered speech pathologist might have been found out.
Is it really wrong to do this? Did it really violate any school policies for a teacher to take pictures and blog about her own lunch?
Last night CPS representatives would only say: "We would have to review the material and assess the content to determine whether any violation of policy has taken place."
To be continued.
-- Monica Eng
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