Lunch Shaming in school - Is free lunch really free

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I have very mixed feeling on this topic. When I grew up shame was a part of life. If you didn't like it, you tried to do better for yourself so that when you had kids they didn't have to go through that. I think maybe we are sparing kids (and adults) from shame too much these days in general.
We had a whole aisle in the grocery store called the generic aisle. It was all black and white packaging and cheaper than regular colorful labeled food. If you brought generic food to school for lunch, I remember kids making fun of you. It seems so bizarre now when I think back.

Some schools are going so far as to provide free lunches and breakfast to all students regardless of income so there is no shaming at all. They call it free for everyone. We know it is not free, it is being paid by people that are being bled dry. We have a district here that has a very good school. A lot of people from the city want their kids to go there so they use a system called choices to send their kids there. The problem the schools had last year is that they had so many choices kids that they actually ran out of room for new residents. How ironic is that, you pay super high taxes, and then you don't get into your slated school because so many out of district kids are there.

Man, don't get me wrong. There is nothing that pulls on the heartstrings more than a hungry kid. What chaps my hide is that people are taking advantage of everything and it is all falling on the shoulders of people that actually work for living. Higher costs everywhere. There are too many bozos having kids after kid after kid without being able to afford one. Zero personal responsibility.

I get it, kids should eat, kids should not be punished for their parents lack of responsibility. My question is, when do the parents get punished? Too many people seem to be getting out of any kind of responsibility.

a reply to: JAGStorm

In my daughters school they scan their ID's at lunch time. You have no way of knowing who's on free lunch.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Shame is the ultimate motivator in life. It's a shame we've artificially shielded so many from experiencing it. There should always be a stigma attached to being on the dole, living thanks to the money earned by someone who shouldn't be shouldering your own responsibilities. Without that stigma, there's no personal reason for people to stop living off of others and provide for their own selves and children.

i dont recall this ever happening at my school

the kids with money normaly didnt talk about it much more likaly someone would take it if you did

a reply to: JAGStorm

To answer your question... never.

Nowadays it’s never the student or parents’’ fault.

Keep that in mind, and your post will make a lot more sense. Sad really. Personal responsibility, accountability, and integrity is lacking in our schools.

Which spills over into society of course

And no, I don’t believe any child should go hungry either

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: JAGStorm

In my daughters school they scan their ID's at lunch time. You have no way of knowing who's on free lunch.

Our school has the kids punch in a personal ID number like a pin. We have to keep his account topped off. We found out halfway through the year that he was indulging in ice cream for dessert!

But because of the system in place, no one knows what anyone else is paying for their food.

Started in 1956. In elementary grades, I carried a lunch. In Jr. and Sr. high schools, I don't ever remember eating at school. I had breakfast at home and supper with the family at home every evening. What has happened between then and now? Families are not feeding their children at home any more. Why? I don't know.

originally posted by: CharlesT
Started in 1956. In elementary grades, I carried a lunch. In Jr. and Sr. high schools, I don't ever remember eating at school. I had breakfast at home and supper with the family at home every evening. What has happened between then and now? Families are not feeding their children at home any more. Why? I don't know.

Hell man, that was how it was in 90s for me in my mostly rural school life. Bag lunch everyday except for special holidays when I could convince my folks to let me take $2 for whatever special meal the cafeteria was prepping.

a reply to: JAGStorm

In the local schools, the kiddos enter an ID number after they get their tray or pay cash daily. In the high schools if they are private pay, they can choose from the a la carte menu which includes pizza, wings, loaded baked potatoes and a salad bar, vitamin water and such.
I don't know why anyone would shame a child for their caregivers not being able to afford cash for their lunch. My children have bought others lunch. When all 5 were in school it was quite expensive however still less expensive (and easier let's face it) than me trying to send them with lunches.
Each of the schools have gotten grants lately that allow for them to have free breakfast for all one year and then another school gets free lunch for all the next year.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: JAGStorm

Shame is the ultimate motivator in life. It's a shame we've artificially shielded so many from experiencing it. There should always be a stigma attached to being on the dole, living thanks to the money earned by someone who shouldn't be shouldering your own responsibilities. Without that stigma, there's no personal reason for people to stop living off of others and provide for their own selves and children.

The problem with that is the people who are blatantly free loading on the system don't give the slightest crap about your "shaming"... Its water off a ducks back to them.

The only people your "shaming" effects is people who have genuinely fallen on hard times, or kids who have been put in that position out of no fault of their own.

I think it should be free to the students. If you are going to serve food, just bake it into the property taxes/school budget and serve everyone. No need to over complicate it.

Part of the problem with public schools is that they are public.

The reality is that in diverse areas there will be some kids whose parent's simply don't have their sh*t together for whatever reason. It is hard enough to teach hoodrat kids, so if you can at least provide a meal so that they aren't hungry, it could yield more benefits for everyone (i.e., maybe the hoodrat kid doesn't disrupt the class as much or other dysfunctional behavior).

My kid's school has an alternate menu for reduced price lunches, forget free.

Oh and regardless of what plan you are on, if you fall behind on payments you get brown bag PB&J sandwich. At that pont everyone knows who is really poor.

I don't remember anyone shaming anyone for food when I was in school. We didn't have a cafeteria in elementary school so you had to bring lunch, except for the occasional hot lunch day, I don't remember the teachers even paying attention to what we had for lunch. In high school we had a cafeteria you could buy food from, you could bring food or you could walk to town and buy food. I have no idea if we had any kind of low income lunch program.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa

The problem with that is that the people who are blatantly free loading on the system don't give the slightest crap about your "shaming"... Its water off a ducks back them.

...which is why you cap the programs after a certain amount of time using them. All things must come to an end eventually.

a reply to: CharlesT

Very few women (or men) can really cook anymore. I cook and people think I'm magic.
I make a simple chicken soup, no joke i've had four people ask me for the secret recipe. It is just simple chicken soup.

I had a friend that only fed her toddlers foods that came out of the microwave. They even had microwave mac and cheese! C'mon all you have to do is boil water and that is too much for people now.

That being said, forget about family dinner time, I fear we are the very last generation to have had experienced it. So sad!

The local schools now provide "free" lunches to all students. I don't disagree with feeding all the kids and just adding it into the budget.

When I was in school, however, there was a "free" lunch program for the supposedly less fortunate. Everyone who didn't qualify had to pay. I had an after school job in high school, and I had to pay for my own lunch. Those who were on the "free" lunch program frequently abused it, taking extra portions of food by hiding it under other things, stuffing food in pockets, etc... When I would point this out, nothing was ever done. I was actually told once to "mind my business, those kids are poor." by a teacher. By the end of the year, due to budget shortfalls, portion sizes were always reduced. The "free" lunch kids who stole continued to do so, laughing about how they were allowed to get away with it.

I learned early on that if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll demand a glass of milk, and if you don't give him that glass of milk, he'll take the milk, some cheese, and a couple of peanuts.

Our school district doesn’t have open enrollment so we don’t have that issue. Many of the less affluent areas have an open enrollment policy so you can choose to go to that district if you wish. This is in Ohio so I would imagine other states have their own idiosyncrasies to deal with when it comes to student movement.

a reply to: cynicalheathen

Oh my god I can’t beleive you quoted that book and so brilliantly done as an ddition to your post! Rock on!!

Is it any wonder teacher’s being paid appropriately is a running joke?

My parents were both teachers but were self-efficient enough to live within their mean. They were frugal and prudent with their combined finances.

Their kids turned out fine is up for debate lol.

As a side, if I wanted Cheetos fruit roll ups or soda, it was off to my neighborhood friend’s, where I was like their second kid

a reply to: Edumakated

Of course, then you are looking at the reality that most school systems don't have their crap together either, and they serve food that would aggravate behavioral issues like ADD/ADHD. Our school does serve food, but it's not the best. We provide a healthy breakfast with complex carbs, whole fruit, some protein and milk or unsweetened juice every morning, and then he gets the free Poptart at school.

And, of course, as we've discovered. Even if you serve good food, that leaves aside the issue of whether or not the kids will eat it because most of them are being fed crap at home and are attuned to that diet.

Sounds like an issue of mismanaged schools to me.

We had that in the stone age growing up. They dealt with it by selling us punch cards for lunches once a month and we never knew who paid and who did not. We all had the same punch card. Simple solutions are simple.