Holding children publicly accountable for unpaid school lunch bills — by throwing away their food, providing
a less desirable alternative lunch or branding them with markers — is often referred to as “lunch shaming.”
The practice is widespread — a 2014 report from the Department of Agriculture found
that nearly half of all districts used some form of shaming to compel parents to pay bills.
“We need to provide school meals on the same basis on which we provide school transportation
and textbooks,” said Janet Poppendieck, a senior fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and author of “Free for All: Fixing School Food in America.”
Some cities, including Boston, Chicago and Detroit, offer free meals to all students under the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal regulation
that allows schools and districts in high-poverty areas to do so regardless of individual need.
“They should know before they get to the cashier.”
The problem of meal debt is not new, but the issue has received more attention recently
because the Department of Agriculture, which oversees school lunch programs, imposed a July 1 deadline for states to establish policies on how to treat children who cannot pay for food.
The department does not prohibit practices that stigmatize children with meal debt,
but offers a list of “preferred alternatives,” such as working out payment plans and allowing children with unpaid balances to eat the regular hot meal.