Law Seeks to Ban School Lunch Shaming
Lunch shaming is real, and can be both damaging to kids and indicative of how this country—casually, cruelly, without thought—treats those in need.
Lunch shaming is the general term for the ways in which a child can be made to feel embarrassed for being unable to pay for lunch. Last week, a federal bill aiming to prevent some of the most obvious ways this happens was proposed, but it may not go far enough.
When a child is unable to pay for lunch—usually he or she owes some money from previous lunches—states have various methods to address the problem. Many of those methods aren’t geared at all towards making sure kids have enough to eat; instead, they’re sometimes cruel, humiliating practices, like throwing food in the garbage (as it’s the cashier, not the server, who discovers the debt), forcing kids to clean tables in front of their classmates, or making kids wear some kind of symbol (a stamp, a wristband) alerting everyone that they are having trouble paying for food.
These are all symptoms, albeit cruel ones, for the fundamental problem of schools having to watch their lunch budgets so closely. If students can’t pay for their lunches, reports the New York Times, the school has to chase down outstanding bills, or find the money elsewhere, and given how underfunded public schools can be, that’s no easy task.
In 2017, New Mexico legislators created an anti-lunch-shaming bill, which is the basis for the new proposed federal law. It bans a few specific things: making a child wear a wristband, taking away a child’s hot lunch after it’s been served, and forcing children to perform chores. But, as Civil Eats notes, it may not go far enough.
Part of the bill is a “sense of Congress” resolution, which is a curious sort of non-binding form of legislation. It essentially says that everyone agrees with what’s said in the “sense of Congress” section, but it is not law, and does not force action. (If you’re wondering what the point of this sort of legislation is, good question!) That section includes a theoretical but not real ban of one of the most common forms of lunch shaming: giving a kid a cold cheese sandwich instead of the hot meal everyone else gets. According to Civil Eats, having that section be non-binding was the only way to get bipartisan support.
Until schools don’t have to worry about debts from school lunches, until schools are properly funded and all kids in public schools can receive lunch regardless of financial situation, this sort of problem will keep happening. This is a first step, but it addresses some of the symptoms, not the cause.
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by Dan Nosowitz, Modern Farmer
April 25, 2019
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Believe all meals at public K-12 schools should be free. As it is, plenty of students already get free/reduced price meals. And for many students, the meal or meals at school may be their only meals of the day. The money spent on providing meals shouldn’t be looked at as a cost, but rather an investment in the future of our country. Just can’t see kids having to suffer due to their parents’ problems.
Agreed that this sort of law does nothing to solve the problem- it doesn’t even define the problem. Is the problem that some kids who qualify are not getting SNAP- free lunch? Or that SNAP is too low a threshold and states don’t have a program for the next tier up? Or that kids/parents are irresponsible and don’t send kids to school with money? Aren’t kids using some sort of debit/lunch card system? Require auto pay on the debit card refills when kids register for school. The state autofills the card for poor kid. Etc etc. Seems there are so… Read more »
This is a financial problem? Schools have to watch their budgets? So a bunch of so called educated adults decided traumatizing, embarrassing, & starving small children is a solution? Kids who have no money & no control over the situation? How does making a child do unpaid work fix this? Were the schools going to pay the children cash for cleaning up which would be used to pay for the lunch? And these hypocrites want to teach anti-bullying? SMH This is nothing more than a bunch of bullies picking on those smaller and weaker with no power. Wake up! This… Read more »
Agreed it’s not going to fix the problem, nor is it going to end the problem, sadly. But I do think that school lunches is an investment in the future of our country. My question is, why was lunch shaming ever started? It is cruel, it is agrigous, outrageous, embarrassing, and oh yeah, did I mention cruel?! As a paraprofessional in schools for 5 years, I find lunch shaming, to be one of the the most offensive things I have heard from a school!!
How to you handle the bad debt?
To use an innocent child as pawn & deprive them of a lunch is totally unacceptable in a land of plenty.
This is absolutely horrible. The child is not to blame the parent should wear a sign saying loser.