Forum #2: The Shameful Act of Lunch Shaming

  
     All across the country young students are subjected to public humiliation and stigmatized by having their lunch trays thrown in the garbage before their innocent eyes, branded with stamps that read “I need lunch money”, forced to clean cafeteria tables in front of peers, or left with no other option than to scrounge through scraps of classmates’ used trays, all because their families are unable to pay for their lunch. Shaming children for unpaid school lunch debts is disgraceful.

    Why on earth are schools doing this? The presumption is that if children are shamed parents will pay the school lunch bill to protect their children and avoid further embarrassment. When those student accounts accrue debt due to inability to pay the average lunch bill of $2.35 per day, cafeteria staff with instructions from the school district take such extreme measure often as the first and only message to parents or guardians that payment is due. The message is pay up or else.
  
     Schools maintain that their goal is to manage their own annual budgets and reduce their debt. The School Nutrition Association reports three-quarters of school districts concluded the 2015-2016 school year with outstanding bills reaching millions of dollars, some districts with unpaid school lunch debts as high as $4.7 million a year, which in their eyes justifies taking lunch shaming action to collect payment.

    Going into the 2017-18 school year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who manages the school-lunch program, will require that all schools attempt to collect lunch debt with each district determining specific policy on how they intend to do so without “explicitly barring them from humiliating children over outstanding bills”. That means “that lunch shaming practices could go from informal policies to written rules in districts across the country.”
  
      Families of four who earn less than $32,000 qualify for free lunch, and families who earn less than $45,000 qualify for discounted lunch. Frequently, families who qualify are unaware of their eligibility for these programs and discounts due to language barriers, issues with registration or for individual reasons, so they end up accumulating debt. Federal funds are not allocated to cover the tab for children who do not qualify for free lunch but whose parents still cannot afford to pay.  According to poverty and nutrition experts, these households are particularly at risk and have an increasing likelihood of struggling to make ends meet.

    While states like New Mexico have adopted strict anti-lunch shaming legislature, most of the nation lags behind in implementing specific policy that would forbid the practice of humiliating our children. All states should follow suit. Schools alongside elected officials need to find new collection strategies without stigmatizing vulnerable kids who have no control over incurred debts and no way to pay them off. The alternatives to singling out innocent kids in front of peers, sacrificing their psychosocial development and spotlighting them to bullies are endless - some as simple as a written notice to parents or guardians. Why not start by using the time it took to throw a full lunch tray in the trash or to brand a child’s hand instead to request payment from someone who can actually do something about it? It could prevent a lifetime of issues rooted in the humiliation and trauma for  these children.

    These shaming practices contradict the mission of our education system and send the wrong message to all children and their parents, not just those singled out. Schools should be institutions teaching compassion, kindness and understanding, where children build self-esteem and develop confidence, and where by example they are taught shaming and bullying of any kind and for any reason, including economic status, are never okay.