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AP: School districts rethink meal debt policies that shame kids

KSweeley

Member
WTF?!?! Kids getting food thrown away due to their account having no money, kids being sent home with a hand stamp that represents them not having money to pay for their food?!??!

Link: https://apnews.com/affc45f314114094...ts-rethink-meal-debt-policies-that-shame-kids

Teaching assistant Kelvin Holt watched as a preschool student fell to the back of a cafeteria line during breakfast in Killeen, Texas, as if trying to hide.

“The cash register woman says to this 4-year-old girl, verbatim, ’You have no money,’” said Holt, describing the incident last year. A milk carton was taken away, and the girl’s food was dumped in the trash. “She did not protest, other than to walk away in tears.”

Holt has joined a chorus of outrage against lunchroom practices that can humiliate children as public school districts across the United States rethink how they cope with unpaid student lunch debts.

The U.S. Agriculture Department is requiring districts to adopt policies this month for addressing meal debts and to inform parents at the start of the academic year.

The agency is not specifically barring most of the embarrassing tactics, such as serving cheap sandwiches in place of hot meals or sending students home with conspicuous debt reminders, such as hand stamps. But it is encouraging schools to work more closely with parents to address delinquent accounts and ensure children don’t go hungry.

“Rather than a hand stamp on a kid to say, ‘I need lunch money,’ send an email or a text message to the parent,” said Tina Namian, who oversees the federal agency’s school meals policy branch.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
So they dump the food in front of the kid and put a stamp on their hand to shame them? What the fuck?

What fucking year is it again?
 
At least put some jelly on those damn peanut butter sandwiches they give out.

Back when I was getting out they thankfully started letting people go negative to about $10, sucked because they didn't give you a heads up so if you only had 50cents...
too bad.
 

NewFresh

Member
My school never denied a child lunch but would keep a tab going. If you had an outstanding balance you could not graduate, but you could always make a case that you could Not afford to pay it.
 

JdFoX187

Banned
My wife is a teacher and has had this happen to some of her students. Sometimes, she gives them a bag of chips or something that she's bought with her own money to ensure they at least have something to eat that's not a cold two pieces of bread and a slice of stale cheese. It's absolutely maddening.

Children, I don't care what their economic background is, deserve -- at the very least -- a free lunch each day at school. I would even go as far to say free breakfast should be provided, as well. The school system here throws the food away, despite saying the reason they can't give it to students is because it costs too much. The food is already fixed. They're essentially throwing away money to spite children and publicly shame them. Should be fucking illegal.
 

Aurongel

Member
Get the kids info and bill the parents at the end of every month their child has an unpaid lunch balance. I get that they shouldn't be stuck with an unpaid bill but punishing the parents by proxy is a manipulative way of going about it. Not to mention inefficient at actually accomplishing what they want to do.

This to me reads as individual schools trying to combat unpaid debts without the infrastructure or capital to establish the type of system I outlined above. I can't imagine any other explanation for something this shitty.
 

louiedog

Member
They did this at my elementary school. Kids paid after their trays were filled and complete lunches were thrown away then replaced with peanut butter and jelly. Their milk was replaced with 0% fruit juice.

My mom was a teacher there and even I forgot to refill my card a couple of times. Fortunately I was allowed to walk down to her classroom and get money so it never happened to me, but it was a luxury others didn't have. I also know she paid for her own students quite a few times.

Man, I don't care if you hate your cafeteria job, don't take it out on the kids.

Oh there was a woman in charge of the program for many, many years who was really hostile to the kids and not much nicer to the teachers and other adults. My mom really disliked her.

We actually had pretty decent food back then. Most things were homemade though we still had canned mixed vegetables and the like. I forget which items they were but that awful woman refused to share her recipes and when she finally retired they could no longer make those things for lunch.
 

Veezy

que?
...or maybe we can provide an economy where parents can afford to feed their children...

Wrong.

We can't ask a coal minor to pay for some kids lunch. We can ask them for defense, and we will, but forcing them to pay for food is completely out of line.
 

Trouble

Banned
Fucking hell, that's heartbreaking.

They should just make school lunches free, full stop. No kid should have to go hungry. Having literal insult added to injury is just cruel.
 

FyreWulff

Member
They're also dismantling the program where poorer schools have nobody pay lunch because the mental effects of everyone having no money would be too great.

At this point though, all food needs to be provided out of the tax budget. It's insane we make kids pay to eat when they need proper meals to have the best chance at learning.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
Disgusting. This is a nation that conservatives like to call a Christian nation. Jesus would not approve.
They also like to crow that we're the greatest nation in the world, when that's not even close to being true anymore, by so many metrics. Ive said it before, but we're pretty much the third world country of first world countries at this point.
 
If your gonna do this to a bunch of teenagers in High School then whatever but doing this to a 4 year old girl is fucked up.
 

Linkup

Member
Shows you how incredibly little thinking actually occurs when people just throw away prepared food. Shaming a child that doesn't have the money is going to get the parent to produce money how? What if the parent doesn't have the money? You can't run a system always expecting the parents and kids to have the money, that's an inherently flawed system doomed to have avoidable problems when it's stressed.
 

akira28

Member
They fucking throw the food away. Incredible.

America's heart is rarely in the right place, even when they're doing the right thing. Feeding young students at a public school? Only so long as the fees are paid, taxes are in full, and lunch ticket has been updated. Only then may your child eat. If there is a problem, then we must shame your child to teach you both a lesson.
 

Kas

Member
This shit happened all the damn time to me, but thank god it hoeuflly won't happen to anyou other child out there.
 

soco

Member
At this point though, all food needs to be provided out of the tax budget. It's insane we make kids pay to eat when they need proper meals to have the best chance at learning.

While I agree 100%, it needs to be an entirely separate budget from the kitchen staffing. We can't even pay most teachers enough, and many have to buy things out-of-pocket for their classrooms.
 

Permanently A

Junior Member
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.
 
The schools in my area do something very similar and at the same time waste a shit ton of food everyday. They throw out trays upon trays of food that isn't sold.

I guess that's a better option than feeding poor kids. That'll make them learn their place.
 

KSweeley

Member
2016, Alabama: http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/06/gardendale_elementary_student.html

gardendale-stamp-0bec23f03ba92575.jpg


When Jon Bivens' son came home with a stamp on his hand during the last week of school, Bivens didn't think much of it.

"I thought it was a good job stamp," he said.

Upon another glance, Bivens saw that it wasn't a good job stamp. There was a smiley face, and under it a note saying, "I need lunch money."


Bivens' son attends Gardendale Elementary School and just completed third grade.

2014, Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City, up to 40 kids meals got thrown out: http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php...3-78/lunches-olsen-students-district.html.csp

Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts — a move that shocked and angered parents.

"It was pretty traumatic and humiliating," said Erica Lukes, whose 11-year-old daughter had her cafeteria lunch taken from her as she stood in line Tuesday at Uintah Elementary School, 1571 E. 1300 South.

Lukes said as far as she knew, she was all paid up. "I think it's despicable," she said. "These are young children that shouldn't be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up."

Cafeteria workers weren't able to see which children owed money until they had already received lunches.

The workers then took those lunches from the students and threw them away.
 

cDNA

Member
In school districts where the poverty rate is very high they don't charge the food to anyone. They should do the same for all the districts.
 

a.wd

Member
Why do Americans go so batshit crazy when you suggest increasing taxes on the superwealthy to pay for programs that mean children eat?

This world is getting progressively worse.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
I don't understand why school lunches aren't entirely free...who would be against that?
Probably something about people not wanting to pay taxes.

I've heard that kids in France get super nice meals with milk, fresh fruit, cheese, and stuff that's actually made by cooks instead of weird frozen shit. It sounds great, and it's all paid for by (admittedly high) tax dollars. I doubt that would fly in the US, since people seem very locked in on the whole idea about wanting to pay for services that very strictly benefit only themselves, and that anyone who can't do the same should go fuck off and die.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Texas recently adopted a temporary grace period for students to keep eating cafeteria food while debt payments are negotiated with parents.

Even this small step was argued against by texas legislature republicans. I'm glad that Greg Abbott ignored them and signed the corresponding bill.
 
“The cash register woman says to this 4-year-old girl, verbatim, ’You have no money,’” said Holt, describing the incident last year. A milk carton was taken away, and the girl’s food was dumped in the trash.

This country needs to get nuked. We're a fourth world country at this point, I'm not gonna insult third world countries by comparing us to them
 

Nydius

Gold Member
My school never denied a child lunch but would keep a tab going. If you had an outstanding balance you could not graduate, but you could always make a case that you could Not afford to pay it.

Same. Not sure when this whole "you can't pay for it now, screw you!" policy started but it certainly wasn't when I was in school. I vividly remember our lunch ladies keeping a notebook at every register and students who didn't have money still got lunch but got a notation of it in the notebook. End of every month, they'd send around notices to parents with a statement of balance and a polite reminder that they'd keep a running tally but it would ultimately be added to an end-of-year debt list that could prevent graduation. They usually also sent applications for free or reduced lunch with said notices.
 

Cmagus

Member
Probably something about people not wanting to pay taxes.

I've heard that kids in France get super nice meals with milk, fresh fruit, cheese, and stuff that's actually made by cooks instead of weird frozen shit. It sounds great, and it's all paid for by (admittedly high) tax dollars. I doubt that would fly in the US, since people seem very locked in on the whole idea about wanting to pay for services that very strictly benefit only themselves, and that anyone who can't do the same should go fuck off and die.

Watch Micheal Moore's movie Where to Invade Next, it's incredible to see how the rest of the world handles things like this. Like you said above some parts of the world have it real good, I'm Canadian and honestly I wish I had some of what they have. Honestly I hate stories like this, the US just seems like such a sad place to live and no one gives a shit about each other.
 

Boke1879

Member
If schools are going to require you to be there at least 8 hours a day to learn. They need to fucking feed you. One free a lunch a day.
 
Man what kid of asshole does this to a little 4 year old. You're throwing it in the fucking trash anyway.
It's like how some (maybe all) fast food places throw away food.

You could just give it to homeless people or give a little extra to customers at the end of the night instead of just throwing it away

Disgusting how people would rather shit go to waste than feed someone because they can't pay for it. Either way you're losing money, but you just have to be an ass
 
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