It’s been a year of firsts for my first grader: First time attending all-day school, first time riding a school bus and the first time eating lunch in the cafeteria. Granted, I pack her lunch the majority of the time, but there have been days when she’s opted for the school’s hot lunch. So far she has only done so on the days that feature pepperoni pizza or chicken nuggets, but, hey, it’s a start, and given that it frees me from wracking my brain at 11 at night trying to figure out what to pack in her lunch bag, I am not complaining.
Given that I pack my child’s lunch nearly 90 percent of the time, I didn’t really examine the fine details of her school’s hot lunch program. Then, one day last October my daughter returned home from school with a full lunch bag. I opened it up to see that none of the items I packed had been touched.
Upon quizzing my kid about the state of her lunch bag, she proudly informed me that she decided to have hot lunch that day.
“I ate Mozzarella Cheese Sticks, mama!”
Whereas I was thrilled that she had consumed something to sustain her during her seven-hour school day, I immediately wondered how she was able to belly up to the cafeteria counter and select her entree option when I hadn’t given her lunch money.
I later found out from her teacher that no student is denied a hot lunch regardless of whether or not they have cash on hand or money in their school lunch account. In my daughter’s case, since she pays per meal (because she rarely eats hot lunch), she was allowed to enjoy the fried cheese sticks and the school billed me for it at the end of the month.
I should clarify that my daughter attends a private Catholic school. I would venture to guess that this practice doesn’t go on much at larger public schools.
That said MSNBC recently ran a piece on how school administrators in the Washington, D.C.-area are no longer helping kids who forget their lunch or lunch money. In years past schools in the district would provide kids, who showed up to the cafeteria without food or money, an alternative lunch, consisting of a sandwich and piece of fruit. However, the budget crisis put a stop to the alternative lunch program, so now when students show up to the cafeteria empty-handed they go hungry for the rest of the day.
Of course, if a family is in an economic bind, and a child consistently shows up to school without food, there is the option to enroll in the free or reduced-price lunch program. But what about kids who simply forget their lunch at home or loose their lunch money on the way to class? Are they forced to go hungry all day?
What does your child’s school do if he forgets his lunch or money at home?
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