Curious what everyone thinks of this story. There are so many layers to the onion, my feelings are extremely complex.
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Interesting. Ive never heard of this. I'll have to check out our state laws but I think our public elementary school told us when we were signing up for her lunch payment account that even if the balance hit zero, they still had to legally feed the child.
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This is LONG overdue. Children should never go hungry--food is the last thing they should ever have to worry about, especially in place where they are supposed to feel nurtured and supported. That it ("lunch shaming") had to be addressed/banned is appalling.
Eta: And the fact that they would receive a different (or lesser) lunch is equally reprehensible. It is not lost on the child that s/he is being treated differently, nor is it lost on their peers.
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The main issue for me is not punishing the child for something they have no control over.
My understanding is that a child is fed a standard option separate from the choice of the day. The real issue in the district where I live begins in middle school, because for the kids in elementary, they buy for the week and they don't run out of funds. Once they get to middle school, it's all a la carte and they could literally spend their entire balance on the first day and then have nothing left for the rest of the week.
Additionally, I think people are afraid to sign up for free and reduced lunch, especially in the current political environment.
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So, I used to be a foodservice director for an entire school district. Our policy was to give a cheese sandwich as a lunch once the child hit a certain balance. Do I think it was the best decision? No. However, there were families that abused the system and would rack up hundreds of dollars of debt of school lunch. Many families would not apply for aide despite the forms being sent home. There definitely needs to be more help for families, but at the time there wasn't much I could do.
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@MrsKRB: what happened to the extra/ leftover food that was prepared but unavailable to the debt children?
I get it, families need to sign up for aide, which compensates the school, or pay the dang lunch bill. However, study after study show a link between full bellies and positive classroom performance and behavior.
What are some ways to reach parents? Ways to get parents to respond to the forms or debt?
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@MrsKRB: Making a child accountable/holding them responsible (and their lunch hostage) for their parents' failure (or inability) to pay is taking the easy way out. Now we're leveraging/encouraging parents to pay up by forcing their kids to suffer? That's asinine. There are legal remedies available to collect debt. Eta: Or, what about fundraisers, donations/sponsors, etc.? A school district will find a way to pay for new band uniforms or a pottery wheel but not school lunches? FFS.
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No matter what the reason is that a family has a balance on their lunch account, no kid should ever be forced to skip lunch or get a lesser lunch. It is absolutely not ever their fault, even if their parents are scammers. In my state, you can't even work until age 16 so there is no way for kids to get money to pay for their lunch themselves, not to mention that must be incredibly embarrassing to be told you can't get lunch because your parents either made a mistake or don't have money. Lunch costs like $2- totally worth it to me as a tax payer to make sure a kid gets fed. Good for New Mexico. I hope the rest of the country passes a similar law.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I don't think parents want to sign up. The forms come home numerous times throughout the year. Maybe the kids are citizens, but the parents are undocumented. They also don't sign up for the state health insurance. It's a real problem.
I think in a lot of situations, there isn't actually money to collect. The expense of going after the families outweighs the collections (at least it does where I live).
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@pwnstar: totally agree with you. WTF is wrong with people and our society that we have to make it illegal or even discuss at all whether we can shame little kids who are hungry?
Also agree that feeding a separate lunch is appalling as well. Still labeling, still spotlighting, still creating issues for a child who is hungry.
Makes my blood boil.
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@looch: yes, this. A lot of parents are too proud to apply for aide, it's really sad.
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: usually it was tossed, or staff would take it. I never agreed with how things were done, but because I worked for a management company I had policies to follow.
@pwnstar: yea, you're right, I never said I agreed with the policies that I was forced to follow. Nevertheless, I don't work in that field anymore
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@MrsKRB: I understand that you didn't agree with the policy--did you ever try to change it? And no, that's not a question I would expect you to answer here, but that is the question in my mind. Sure, I can understand that that was the policy when you became the Director, but not doing anything to change it . . . ? Yeah. Eta: The only *powerless* people in this situation are the hungry kiddos who are being humiliated or denied food.
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@yoursilverlining: Yes!! Please, priorities people! The very very basic thing a school should be doing is making sure all their kids are fed and then worry about other things!
This breaks my heart. If I know about any child that doesn't get a packed lunch or money for lunch I would do it myself in a heartbeat regardless of whether the parents actually have the means to feed their own kid,
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@pwnstar: @yoursilverlining: @snowjewelz: Totally agree ladies! I can't believe we (as a society) are allowing this to be an issue. FEED KIDS! It's not even something we should be debating.
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@pwnstar: I think the problem with fundraisers is that schools are constantly asking for money, and parents are okay with donating if their children benefit. People aren't that compassionate, it's unfortunate but true. When they donate, they want a say in how the funds are spent, I see it in our school's PTO.
It's really difficult to open your wallet month after month (and I do it) to pay for the markers that the classroom needs, sponsor the kids in the jump a thon, read a thon, bake sale, book sale, etc. It has to stop at a certain point, or it will never get changed from the top.
Now having said that, I don't know what a reasonable solution is. In the district where I live, I think the problem is solved in the elementary schools but the problem in the middle and high schools could be solved by doing away with the a la carte options and having solely the fixed price options for the week. Now, if there is no money at home to buy even that, then what? The tax payers have to be okay with paying that, no?
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@looch: I totally understand that... My kids aren't in public school so I probably don't see first hand just how often school is asking for money/donations for this & that. But I mean even for daycare now, they're always having pizza parties, throwing different events!
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@looch: I was using the fundraising as an example of the absurdity of this *gap* in funding/planning. It shouldn't come to that, but the in event it does (before change is implemented), I would hope most parents would choose to open their wallet for this versus, say, a trip to New York for the marching band to participate in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
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@looch: I live in a place where there's FRD for everyone, and I recently worked in a high school where everything is alacarte.
It is basically like, you can go in and get whatever. I dunno if there's any restrictions on how much you can get in one category. Anyway, this is why if your district has FRD you might as well give it to everyone. Because it is too difficult to administer without easy access.My son's school will have free breakfast and lunch next year. I don't love the breakfast options so I don't think I will bring him in time for breakfast.
I am not a fan of school lunch food options, but I don't think it is because of the nutritional guidelines, but because there is a greater emphasis on single serve, packaged foods, and that limits the options that students can choose. Can't package spaghetti, can package chicken fingers or a frozen burrito. Because school lunch is free at his school, there's literally no point in trying to get him to eat anything I pack for him, so part of sending to public school meant accepting public lunch.
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@pwnstar: I hate to say it, but the parents won't and don't. You should hear some of the conversations in the PTO! And it comes from the parents that you would least expect it from too!
It's really difficult to get parents to agree to pay for other kid's stuff. They might do it on a one off, but something like sponsoring a child for the entire year isn't happening. I really like the idea, maybe that's part of the solution. -
@caterw: I agree with you absolutely. Feeding our children should be priority number 1, and if state and federal programs leave gaps I believe the schools should fundraise for that instead f trying to sell me wrapping paper and candles for elaborate filed trips or new kiln for the art department.
As a kid, there were years where my sisters and I were dependent on free lunch programs. It was humiliating and it took me a month of going hungry to get over the shame and bring the form home to my parents and then be willing to stand in line for the second-class "poor kid" lunch. Poverty is absolutely soul-crushing and children absolutely should not be segregated, shamed, or treated differently for their financial circumstance.
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Two more things. My kids have always gone to either public daycare or daycares on college campuses that get public funding. All have always had all meals provided so they can get highest ratings on their care (GA has a daycare rating program). So for me, I've always paid for meals as a part of tuition. Some of the other kids get tuition vouchers. So they're not really paying for their food (if you consider food as a part of tuition generally). So I think one way to look at this is just that meals are a part of overall school expenses that parents "pay" for with tax dollars. Eliminates all hang wringing about who pays what, etc.
The other thing is that in my town, students can get lunch at the school and other public spaces during the summer. In fact, I'm volunteering to distribute them this summer. Free reduced lunch is such a good thing.
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@MrsKRB: universal free lunch is just so much better.
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@pwnstar: I would rather the parents have garnished wages than the student be publicly shamed for the conditions of their birth.
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@looch: there's a lot of evidence that the better off people are, the less likely they are to give. I suppose the attitude is, "we managed to do xyz....they should manage as well."
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@Mrs. Sketchbook: I agree, universal free is the best choice, but not every state is in the position to pay for it. And it seems we take the worst care of our young, sick, handicapped you name it, all because of special interest groups. That's what is so frustrating.
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@looch: I think we have Title I funds to pay for it, which is federal funds. I wonder how our community will react if that gets pulled out from under their feet. Oh well...their choice I suppose.
I will say....I saw a ton of food waste as the kids would just grab food and then not eat it. I thought that was pretty disappointing. But still much better than the alternative.
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@pwnstar: 100 percent agree. Humiliating by children over something completely out of their control is appalling. And I can't image being the one to do it, even if it was policy.
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@azjax:
Yes, absolutely this. Kids get bullied enough; they don't need just one more thing to feel ashamed about.
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@looch: what if the state and federal government identified the students who's family qualified? Every year some government entity puts out statistics on the numbers who qualify, but don't submit the forms.
You're totally right I would want to have a vested interest in the child before paying extra. Perhaps the case to be made is that school lunch is better for everyone in the class. One of the HB bloggers talked about an impactful act of kindness is to bring a local student's lunch debt current.
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@Mrs. Sketchbook: I don't think we get federal funds, but I should look into that and see if I can get more information. I suspect that the town gets reimbursed by the state. And with the state's current fiscal mess, that's probably going to be cut from the budget and local school districts are going to have to pick up that cost. A dollar can only be stretched so far.
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: my son won't eat the school lunch because of physical limitations, so while I agree it is better for everyone to eat the same thing, I have to consider that. In addition, what they provide isn't something I would eat myself, so why do we think it's acceptable for any child to eat that food? When you have $1.20 to spend, you're not winning any awards for nutrients, let's be honest.
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@looch: Our district gets Title I funds based on income/poverty line, etc.
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@Mrs. Sketchbook: I looked it up and based on the info I could find, it seems some schools in town are Title 1.
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@looch: Whether you consider the lunch being offered to be nutritionally optimal has no bearing on whether a child should have access to a lunch--at all. If you or your child choose not to eat it, fine; you are able to avail yourselves of other options. But for a child who may otherwise go hungry (for some children, school lunch is the only meal on which they can rely), the concern is hardly whether the apple is organic or the food contains preservatives.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: As I mentioned in another post, I don't love school lunches, but it is the fixation on grab-and-go, single-serve items that really makes them awful. Making everything individually wrapped eliminates needs for cooking (aka, paying skilled workers) and eliminates concerns of food poisoning/contamination. Plus students like single serve items which makes school lunch more popular with the kids. It is really sad but it isn't really a "class" issue. My siblings (10+ years my junior) is all upper middle and they love the single serve items. Germ o phobe upper class parents are probably more likely to sue a school over food poisoning...
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@pwnstar: I completely agree with everything you said, but if making school lunch universal had the effect of promoting better school lunches, then I'd be all about that. Because school lunch is pretty grotty, and if your kid goes somewhere with free lunch, you really have to let them eat it, because all their friends will be eating it, etc. No amount of gluten free quinoa in a bento box is going to prevent them from grabbing the free pizza. In my district we have free lunch and breakfast so I'm going to send my kid to school after breakfast time is closed so he eats at least two meals at home. And maybe I can advocate for better lunches on the PTO. But in actuality, processed lunch is just as much of a problem in high as in low income areas.
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@Mrs. Sketchbook: Wait. So you're not "all about" making sure that free lunch students have access to the same lunch as everyone else, regardless of what that lunch is? We're talking about school lunch shaming, not about the nutritional density of school lunch. The primary issue is access--it should be available to all students. After that we can focus on the menu.
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@pwnstar: Believe it or not, I am an advocate for universal free lunch. I can have opinions on the quality of the food, I would like it to improve and I think that's more likely to happen if everyone eats it, regardless of socioeconomic background. In some surrounding districts, the menu is pretty fancy, but there are literally 0 kids there on free/reduced. I looked it up, the price of a reduced lunch is 40 cents. Full price is 2.65. The elementary kids on free and reduced are never going to be denied food because there is no way they can spend the money in their account, it's not a la carte. It's the kids that don't sign up because of immigration worries, or whose parents make too much according to the guidelines that slipping through the cracks. I did read one thing (at least in my district that made me feel better) is that if a kid has no lunch from home and no money to buy something, they're given a sandwich.
But personally, it's a problem for my child. If it's all kids have to eat it, what am I seriously supposed to do for him? Not attend the school? Not have him eat lunch? Have him eat alone in the principal's office? Trust me, I want him to eat but he physically cannot.
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@looch: @Mrs. Sketchbook: I meant school lunch as in everyone having enough to eat at school is beneficial for everyone. Not that everyone should have to eat school provided lunch. Brown bag lunch is fine.
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@pwnstar: huh? I don't mean to be defensive...but I'm grasping to see what I've said that is offensive...I agree with universal lunch and in fact my kid goes to a school with universal lunch....I'm merely saying that if implementing universal lunch everywhere invigorated parents to agitate for better lunches, that would be a good thing....there's no reason to vilify posters for bringing up the idea that they would want to pay for a quality lunch/one that met special needs. Of course, that *IS* the sort of novel idea that poor people really can't afford to have, but that rich people can have. But forcing rich people to pay for universal lunch could have the effect of making them care about an issue that largely doesn't impact them. Social school segregation of course allows for these disparities. I'm really lucky to live in a small city where there isn't as much opportunity to section yourself off by race/socioeconomics. We only have one middle/high school for the whole district.
Honestly, this whole debate is so foreign to me because we've had universal lunch at the schools in this area for as long as I've been a decision making parent. So to have people debate whether or not to pay for lunch....is sort of quaint to me. We get free lunch because the majority of the kids in this area are below the poverty line. If getting free lunch encourages parents to care more about the contents of lunch, then that is absolutely a good thing. That's all I'm trying to say.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I was just pointing out that one interesting secondary effects of universal lunch is that your kid will eat school lunch, even if you've provided a brown bag lunch, because that's what everyone else is eating, and because it is freely available and no one is going to curtail his/her access to it. That ISN'T a reason not to have universal lunch, but it is a secondary outcome that as parents you have to consider if you are going to send a child to a school with universal lunch. Right now I control for that by not taking my kid to school for breakfast. But eventually if he's riding the bus he will be eating both breakfast and lunch there. So maybe that will encourage me to agitate for higher quality food, since I know I can't control what he's eating once I put him on the bus.
Typical breakfast options on universal lunch at the school I worked at:
grape juice or cow's milk
plastic packaged main like: breakfast burrito, breakfast pizza pocket, breakfast sausage sandwich, biscuit with jelly.
apple/orange/banana
packaged cereal boxes (fruit loops, cheerios, apple jacks, rice krispies, etc.)
Yes, absolutely this. Kids get bullied enough; they don't need just one more thing to feel ashamed about.
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48 comments