The children are not responsible for paying "their" debt are they? Isn't that the parents' responsibility? If so, it's entirely inappropriate to punish children because their parents owe money. Hell, it's entirely inappropriate to withhold regular, nutritious meals from them regardless.

is punishment how, exactly?

to be replaced by said tuna sandwich, is punishment?

The school has now started************** taking away regular lunches******** from some students who owe money *********once they are checking out******, replacing their meal with a tuna sandwich.

dumbest, most clueless, most reprehensible post of the day.

Congrats, Sparky. And buh-bye. I do NOT need people like you in my life.

My local school district has a similar policy. It is a rural school district, so it is operating on the thinnest of margins to begin with. Nobody makes a big fuss about it. In fact it serves as a good reminder for parents to send in money to replenish the lunch account when their kid comes home and says that they had tuna or PBJ today.

This is certainly not happening in my area. No way-and I am in a poor WI area. The only way this happens is if the level for reduced or free lunches is way too high.
If this is true-it sounds like one person in power is abusing it.

They'll let students be $20 short or 30 days behind.

If I got to far behind or forgot to pay...pb&j or baloney and cheese and a milk....I finally started sending my two in with lunches....sandwich or leftovers, one of those Oscar Meyer things, bite sized candy,chips and salsa and a juice....it cost me about the same either way, and my kids liked it better because dad made it!

People need to pay their bills.

in front of other students, and hand them a sandwich? really?

All I asked is what is wrong with tuna or pbj? From that you assume I want kids humiliated?

Parents are sent multiple notices about their late payment and the children are told in private. Some kids rack up a bill by purchasing the chips and other items that are the extra's. There is no reason to assume that the children are humiliated. Fact is, most kids know the score about their families economic reality. The families who struggle have many needs and in my experience school staff try to help the best they can. Kids are given coats, hats, boots and other clothing items every year in every school by school personnel. Teachers buy them supplies. In some areas the free breakfast and/or lunch programs run in the summer. Are you going to assume that the children are humiliated by that? And guess what? They eat pbj and tuna. There are doubtless countless kids who eat the same food in the school cafeterias all the time.

I repeat, people should pay their bills. Schools are required to fund education.

The school has now started taking away regular lunches from some students who owe money once they are checking out, replacing their meal with a tuna sandwich.

as the OP agreed when I questioned, this means that the children are in line, get their lunches, and then have them taken away at checkout, in full view of other students. are you okay with this? you saw nothing wrong with tuna, but said nothing about the context.

whatever the substitute meal is. So if this is how one school does it, bad idea. But I don't think that is the norm and I still think that its the parents responsibility to pay their bill if/when they want their kids to have the school lunch. I'm not ok with parents humiliating their kids either.

it doesn't matter how gently other districts handle such a situation, the question was about how THIS district is handling the problem.

the discussion on a discussion board.

So now let's talk consider this. Kids now often bring snacks to school for the am. So when a kid doesn't have a snack or the snack isn't the latest snack food fad-is that the schools fault too? Should the teacher pay for a snack for the child to avoid possible humiliation? Because in a class of 22-25 kids, a teacher could go broke in a hurry.

You do not have an issue with the practice as described.

That is your answer.

Oh yeah, "people should pay their bills." What a repuke thing to say. Listen, sparky, many people CANNOT pay their bills. What is it about a RECESSION that you do NOT understand? If everyone else is eating one thing and the kids who cannot pay are eating a tuna sandwich, they are being singled out. Kids look for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that's different to pick on other children.

Christ on a crutch, the stupid is making me sick.

Children should not be fed tuna more than once a week, because it contains mercury, which is POISON.

then taken away from them, in front of the other children, to be replaced by a sandwich? how utterly disgusting. bullying and humiliating are mild words for that--I can think of a few others.

I have not heard of anything like this around here, but would not surprise me--sounds like a bunch of teabaggers runnings things.

there has got to be a better way to handle this situation--you do not punish the children because the parents cannot, or will not, pay.

The children are in line, they receive their meal, and once they type their number into the keypad and it shows they owe a substantial amount of money, the lunch is taken away and replaced with tuna.

it is not the child's fault.

can't they do an outreach to the community to help? WTF.

Sometimes I was broke because of unemployment but if I had a loan it made no difference to the bank or what ever. Punishing a kid of mine would not magically give me money to pay them.

but would gladly take the PBJ or tuna instead. And kids being kids (or at least in my experience with many kids), they don't have a problem eating the same lunch day after day...

Shame on them!

talking about here--public humiliation. like there isn't enough of a problem with bullying in schools. now we give the bullies another target?

...would have been a whole lot better than the slop we were served for lunch daily at my elementary school back in the 1960s; although that was paid for by the taxpayers rather than by parents of individual students.

because their accounts aren't current pretty much every day. And its not necessarily related to being poor.

At our school, I as the parent gets a notice when the lunch fund is low. If I fail to re-fill it and my daughter gets up to the "cashier" to check out and she doesn't have enough in her lunch account she has to return items. Its pretty common and nobody feels humiliated or ashamed. She usually has friends who will provide food from their lunches, while she's done the same for others many times as well.

At my daughter's school there are no delinquent accounts. Once it gets to zero you can't buy anything from the school cafeteria so this happens pretty frequently because either the parents have forgotten or the kids forget to tell the parents (if there's no email). Nobody seems too fussed by it in my experience.

to be handed a sandwich. not quite the same thing.

In front of all your peers.

Happens daily with more than a few kids. Nobody frets over it or gets humiliated in my experience.

son's school did that only with PB&J, apple and milk. What they also did was to make PB&J a daily option on the lunch menu. This made it look like the kids chose it for lunch.

What got me is that they did this when $10 was owed, which was 4 lunches, even less if the kids also eat breakfast at school.

you don't eat.

The food program is run by an outside contractor and you don't owe the school, you owe the food service company. If you don't have money in your account you can't "buy" anything (all of the kids in our school district are required to wear an RFID badge on a lanyard which also contains the info @ your lunch account coded in. You simply swipe your badge when you go to the "cashier" - who doesn't take any $$ by the way - and it automatically deducts from your account).

I'm thinking this isn't as cruel as it sounds. It would certainly make the parents stay on top of it if their child was going hungry every day. And if they couldn't afford it, you'd think it would pressure them into filling out the paperwork to get a free hot lunch.

Since there's no fallback meal for the kids like a tuna or a PBJ, the parents become a tad bit more compelled to get involved I believe.

Bluefin Tuna Caught Near California Still Radioactive Years After Fukushima
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/bluefin-tuna-radiation_n_2736221.html

Bluefin Tuna From The Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Still Have Traces Of Radiation
http://www.forbes.com/sites/monteburke/2013/02/20/bluefin-tuna-from-the-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-still-have-traces-of-radiation/

Radioactive Fish Found In California: Contamination From Fukushima Disaster Still Lingers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/22/radioactive-fish_n_2743899.html

won't do paperwork so their children can have a meal?
owe money and let the kids suffer the consequences?

My thoughts are - don't humiliate the children.
Investigate the parents for potential child abuse - which includes their negligence for not doing what is necessary to make sure their children have a lunch meal.

Where children are behind several hundred dollars, the school has investigated, by getting the magistrates office involved with the parents.

Watch how fast the money/forms will arrive.

(I'm a teacher.)

Ok, ok, you call them up and give them a few weeks warning, etc etc, but you eventually have to keep them home if they can't get through the day in school.

Christ. I feel sorry for your students.

MY husband is a teacher. A KIND teacher who would never think of endangering children this way. He teaches at an alternative high school were generational poverty is endemic. The parents don't sign the forms because they are dysfunctional, passed out drunk, in jail, high, or so incredibly ignorant they don't understand the problem. WE have supported MANY children through the years by paying their lunch bill so they aren't humiliated and go hungry. Keeping those kids at home will make sure that many of them don't eat at all.

Go crawl back under your rock.

It was infinitely better than high school pizza, or... horrors! high school hot meals, most specifically the meat loaf.

I would tease the cafeteria manager relentlessly that I only wanted the tuna to raise my mercury level so I could always automagically know the temperature outside. (A singularly monotonous task in Southern California, I might add.)

My fellow teachers and I had great fun at lunch hour with our relentless pranks, especially at the cost of the menu choices, which actually was pretty damned good. But it's not as fun praising the food as poking fun at it. The food manager knew we really liked it, funa tish sandwiches and all. But not the meat loaf.

I haven't seen "fruit compote" on a dessert menu in forty years.

I didn't know, until well into college, that one could "snap" green beans, or that they were anything but limp at any point in their life cycle.

But, hey, this is DU - at least they aren't making those kids eat at, gasp, Olive Garden.

I don't get it.

If they are not on the free lunch program, the debt adds up.

Sometimes more. Parents are expected to pay that.

Some schools continue to feed kids even if they have no money... Or their account is empty. Hence the debt.

My kids school won't feed our kids unless they have money on them or their account.

Certainly motivates parent and child to figure it out quick.

Otherwise, I'm going to assume that the parents can afford to pay for the meals. It could also be that the students are spending the money on other things.

The schools in my opinion never should allow for lunches unless it is either paid or they are in the program.

- and there were no "accounts". You deposited money into the students lunch fund and - if there was no money left - the student either got nothing or got peanut butter. You weren't allowed to build up a negative balance. You only got to eat if you had money.

I'm sure they had an alternative for children with peanut allergies, I've no clue what it was.

More than once my children would use all the money in their account and fail to tell me so they'd end up not having enough to purchase lunch. Luckily, they had good friends who would share lunch and my children did the same for them if the situation was reversed.

I mean, yeah they owe a lot of money and I hope that that's forgiven to a certain extent, but there are the reduced/free lunch programs that they can apply for. And really, a tuna salad sandwich is a relatively nutritious meal (I hope they get milk with it, though...)

some fruit, for example, or just the sandwich?

It was always a big treat when our mother packed tuna sandwiches. Usually we had to make do with something less appetizing like egg salad or peanut butter & jelly.

Its the parents who are not paying, or filing the free lunch paperwork. Can't any action be taken against them?

Jan 2009: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4923250

Feb 2011: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x470794

Appears to be a ~2 year return interval...

(Taking the lunches away - as in out of a student's hand after they've gone through the line? That seems highly inappropriate to me.)

I mean really, the schools are supported by OUR taxes. WE pay for the schools. Can we just please pay for the meals we feed our children in the schools we pay for?

You know, I can't help but feel that we are not asking the right question, just like with the article Bitter Pill in Time. We are arguing over who is paying the medical bills instead of questioning the bills in the first place.

With school meals it is the same thing. Instead of asking who is going to pay for lunch at school (answer: we do) why aren't we asking why we have to pay at all? We pay for the lunches through our taxes, why have the extra tax/copay on top of it? I mean really, it boggles! If we just paid .0001% more in tax, we could have free lunches for everybody! These are our schools that we pay for with our taxes! Nothing is free from the government, it is just our money recycled and re-purposed.

Why is this so hard for Americans to understand?

was able to participate in public school sanctioned functions without the glut of additional fees that are now charged. School fees are becoming ridiculous and it's the people who are poor or more likely slightly above poverty who are suffering. Pay for every kid's lunch. Period. Public school should be free for students (paid with tax dollars). Period.

The vast majority of kids are living in poverty. It isn't even worth the effort to maintain lunch accounts, and there's no mechanism to pay for lunches if parents wanted too. If you feel bad about your kid getting free lunches, you send them to school with a lunch, or maybe you donate money to the school for supplies.

We could easily afford lunches but it was nice knowing our kids wouldn't be hungry if they forgot to bring a lunch. It was even nicer knowing that kids whose families were struggling got lunch the same as everyone else. There's no division in the cafeteria line between those who can and can't pay. If a kid stands in line, they get fed. That's the way it ought to be.

On one hand, schools are underfunded, and when they are loosing money from their lunch program, they need to make it up somehow. Giving the student a cheaper lunch is an obvious way to do this. Also, knowing that the parents could just fill out some paperwork, and get free lunches, makes this more understandable. I'm poor, so I filled out paperwork for my kids to get free lunches.

On the other hand, this has great potential for humiliation for the student. I don't like the way this is being implemented. Taking away the student's lunch in front of everyone isn't cool, in my opinion. Additionally, I think some of the other posters made a good point about not punishing the child for the faults of the parent.

An interesting situation.

What happens to the tray of food that is taken away at the cash register? Is it recycled back into the day's selection? More likely, it is thrown away. It doesn't make sense -- throw away perfectly good food in order to humiliate and punish a kid for the parent's failure to pay for school lunch. And tuna isn't cheap, either. This policy just doesn't seem to be well thought out.

but then I know how "accurate" reporting can be...

But my opinion is as a chef proper nutrition and a proper meal is the key to kids doing their best in school. Therefore I believe schools shouldn't charge for lunches it should be subsidized by the taxpayers via a well funded education budget.

healthy and nutritious. and, surprise, surprise, studies show that the children are doing better academically, there are fewer behaviour problems, and, if I remember correctly, fewer absentee days. they discovered it was actually less expensive in the long run.

Some schools allow kids to buy all kinds of ala carte items or double lunches on one day. I have told my high school son, I will put enough money in the account for you to buy one regular meal every day. If you spend all the money on the first couple days by buying a double lunch or ala carte items and run out of money, then you can bring food from home or go hungry.

I know another mom who provides food for the kids to bring, but one kid just runs up an account at school. She said she's not going to pay.

If elementary schools allow kids to buy extras they could have the same problem.

Mercury, and all that.

Destroying their self-esteem early really speeds the process up.

Why give them tuna sandwiches, which are actually quite good?

I'd occasionally forget to tell my mom I'd used up all my lunch card, so they'd give me a cheese or peanut butter sandwich and a box of milk. There wasn't any running up a tab. It wasn't humiliating and I wasn't emotionally scarred for life due to the occasional cold sandwich versus hot lunch.

I don't think they should take away their food after being in line, but let them know that the next day they get a sandwich instead.

Basically, the kids pay first and get "tokens". The lunchperson checks each of them as they're coming in, and hands them a token based on what the type of lunch they're getting. Some kids get "regular" tokens. Other kids get "vegetarian" tokens. Other kids get "allergy" tokens. And if a kid is overdue, they get the "basic" token, which consists of a carton of milk, a sandwich, and a fruit rollup. A lot of kids actually CHOOSE the "basic" lunches simply because a lot of kids like sandwiches. Some parents choose them because they're only 50 cents, and the "regular" lunches cost $1.75.

The school also has a policy that NO KID gets forced onto the basic token unless they owe the school at least $50 and that balance has been outstanding for at least two months.

Taking a kids lunch away at "checkout" is barbaric. Some kids may still be unhappy when they get a sandwich on "pizza day", but it's cruel to hand them the "nicer" lunch and then take it away again.

Anyone who isn't on it probably has the money to pay for lunches or just has crappy parents. It sucks that kids have to be singled out for their parents being too screwed up to fill out the paperwork, but I don't know how else the school would handle it.

For the most part, at least around here, there is no stigma attached to being on the program. There's also no stigma attached to having lousy parents, as that's one of the normal topics of conversation with the kids, sadly.

but forgetting to refill her lunch account, and having her lunch taken away from her at "checkout", has never come up. Its simply not a big deal since it happens to virtually every kid at school - rich and poor.

There appears to be no shame attached if you can't "pay" at checkout. From what I've been told, the rest of the kids at the lunch table simply chip in whatever extras they have to feed the one who didn't get lunch.

And yeah, I'd guess my parenting has been the source of MANY lunchtime convos...

So the procedure is the same for ALL of the kids in this district.

FWIW, I moved here 6 years ago from another school district and it was the same procedure.

No $ in your lunch acct means you don't get lunch that day. If you go up to the cashier and your acct is empty, you have to go back and put the food away (in front of all peers) and you do not eat that day.

Nobody seems to have a problem with it.

I agree it seems harsh. If I hadn't had direct current experience with this I'd probably be joining the hue and cry.

But the kids just simply don't seem to find this a big humiliating deal. What it does do is put the onus on the parents to make sure the $$ is there - either through enrolling in the free lunch program or re-filling the lunch acct. My school district simply does not have enough extra $$ to subsidize free lunches. And they shouldn't. There are resources for parents to take advantage of.

The loners, outcasts and misfits on the other hand. Ah, who the hell cares about them anyway.

Please don't assume. She's not "in" with any group and is deeply troubled.

I'm just telling you my experience with her situation. Nobody goes hungry. Nobody is humiliated over school lunches (or the lack thereof).

I meant "loner" in the sense that you eat alone in the cafeteria because no one will sit with you or let you sit with them.

Not much chance to get goodies from others in that scenario and it's more common than most of us would like to think.

While the story in the OP makes the school seem heartless its the same thing - there's more to what we're being lead to believe from this account imho.

Its an individual thing and I would never say that NO child is ever hurt but in my experience schools are pretty vigilant about not humiliating kids. Obviously the two school districts I've got direct experience with my own kids (along with my own experience as a child) indicates that's so. On a broader scale I haven't seen overt cruelty by schools towards poor children. Clearly the systems I've been exposed to have worked in striking a good balance with all ends of the spectrum from the popular super social kids (my oldest) to the troubled loner (my youngest who yes, has experience being the one sitting alone in the cafeteria).

While I would never say never in terms of schools messing up, the onus really is on parents to ensure their children are taken care of however. Bottom line.

Poverty is disabling. My husband teaches at a school where poverty is rampant. Getting parents to sign those forms can be like pulling teeth. They're often disabled, or so depressed (depression is more disabling than end stage heart disease, BTW) or so out of it they just can't sign the forms.

And here's how the school should handle it: PAY FOR THE FUCKING LUNCHES. Christ. I thought this was supposed to be a democratic board.

It is wrong to bring this into the world of the kids.

It should be handled behind the scenes between school and parents. Period. Full stop.

I mean, I hate it, but somebody please suggest a solution. It's not the kids' fault, but some parents can game the system by just refusing to pay if they know their kids will still get lunch.

Crappy situation all around.

Bake

I don't have any answers either. But it isn't right to do that to the kids for a few important reasons.

this is done, but very infrequently, ONLY after many notes home with the student, and phone calls and/or emails to the parents. This process is started when the student is $30 in the hole - in our district families are not allowed to owe hundreds of dollars.

Our procedure is to scan students, who then proceed through the lunch line. If a student is more than $30 in arrears, and the parent has been notified a number of times that this will happen, the student will be given a cheese sandwich and milk and not allowed to get the regular lunch. This is done without a lot of fuss or fanfare or humiliating the kid.

It is very rare for any child to get one of these cheese sandwiches, and I don't remember having seen any kid with them more than one day. A lot of the time, knowing that the kid will get a cheese sandwich, the parents pay up.

Families who run up large debts like that are taking away from the school lunch program's ability to provide good, healthy lunches for all the children. I don't like the idea of a kid being humiliated, and feel my school does a pretty good job in minimizing that, but these parents' actions are unfair not only to their own children, but other children as well.

all of the accounting and finances for that school and you should ask to see them too. Why are they in the hole? If it is because of lunch they need to figure out a cheaper way to feed the kids , but dig deeper I doubt that is the reason. Recently, the district has implemented a policy to deal with students who have delinquent accounts (in some cases, some kids accounts are $-300, $-400, $-500, which is causing the school to be "in the hole"

Kids who were on the lunch program (kids in need) were immune. The school was targeting parents who were too damned lazy to send money to school.

I had no problem with it.

Having to pay for food is an inherent injustice in the modern world. Farmers with modern technology can produce amounts of food that are beyond comprehension; the distribution of the food in this nation is top-notch. There is no reason for any of us in this society, adults and children alike, regardless of class to even be asked to pay for a sandwich.

Its time to nationalize agriculture and the food distribution network; and make the food stamp program universal. Everybody ought to get a card with a certain amount of money or credits loaded onto it every month, so that they can eat. Simply take the card to a food distribution center, select your groceries for the month; or in this case present it at the school cafeteria; and have food with nothing more asked in return. Its simple and quite doable.

But I think that they are doing the right thing with giving the student a replacement lunch. It should be handled before the student gets to the cashier though. I would have loved to be humiliated with a tuna sandwich many a time when for what ever reason I didn't have lunch money, usually it was forgetting it, but sometimes I just didn't have it. Anyway, my two older kids wouldn't mind that humiliation either. My youngest would have come home and proclaimed I was trying to kill her. She hates sandwiches with a passion.

And as for trying to force me to eat it, and that humiliation attempt- I seriously would have thrown the sandwich on the floor and refused to pick it up. Tell my parents? Sure, no problem- they would tell you that I don't eat tuna either.

it targets the lazy and/or unorganized.

Works like a charm and I have no problem with it.

I was a kid. But that would have been preferable to the humiliation.

when the school system IS the bully. This is infuriating.

I am in Springfield, MO and here the child will be given a cheese sandwich. They can charge their lunch one time only. The second time they will get a cheese sandwich and they will get a cheese sandwich every day until it is paid.

We don't qualify for free or reduced price lunches. We get paid twice a month. We frequently run out of money between paydays. I pack my child's lunch every morning.

The free lunch program, like every other program, only looks at gross income. It does not look at things like excessive medical bills, etc. A family can be in financial ruin and not qualify. I speak from experience.

at the end of the line, when the kids have already been allowed to choose food.

Teach them to beat up other kids for lunch money.

WTF is wrong with kids today - no initiative or problem solving skills.

Hell, make it easy and get rid of those damned "gun free school zones". Give 'em the guns, and let them sort it out.

You're all welcome.

1. For many children this is the ONLY nutritious meal they will have that day. They have no money at home for food, or they take turns with dinner. Approximately one in five children go to bed hungry every night.

It is probably a safe bet that these are also the kids who's parents cannot afford the school lunch.


2. If the scholl doesn't have the money they don't have the money. They very likely cannot afford to provide free meals to the kids. Not unless the teachers and admin want to make up the difference out of their own pay (and it is, of course, ridiculous to expect any such thing).


3) It is a sad but understandable thing when a parent cannot feed their children. I have nothing but compassion for these people. And at the same time, I have nothing but contempt for a SOCIETY which allows this. In truth, it's not a society at all. It's a mob of sociopaths. The idea that we cannot afford to feed our children is absurd. Of course we can, we just choose not to.

I am often criticised for being hard on President Obama. THIS is one reason why. We have hungry children in this country and he is giving tax cuts to the wealthy, we have hungry children and he is spending 600 BILLION on defense, we have hungry children and he is locking in micro tax rates for the Romneys and the Waltons, we have hungry children--

HUNGRY FUCKING CHILDREN

--and he is talking about anything else. It's inexcusable. Sorry, but it just is. If hungry American children are not a priority than nothing is. You can do everything else perfectly and if you blow it on that one you fail.