When it comes to student lunches, there are a lot of different opinions.
Some people think the schools should only serve healthy options, while others think they should serve foods that kids like. Most people agree that no child should go hungry at lunch, even if they can’t afford lunch money.
A student was recently denied a lunch at a Texas middle school for owing less than a dollar to the school cafeteria.
The student’s mom claims that her 12-year-old son had to go hungry all day because his account was negative 50 cents. As usual, everyone had something to say about it.
When the story was shared on Reddit, it seemed like most people felt that the school wasn’t to blame and the mother should have paid better attention to her child’s cafeteria balance. Some of the comments included:
“Let’s hold parents accountable for things instead of shifting the blame where it doesn’t belong. Missing lunch won’t kill the kid. Negligent parents might.”
And:
“Sounds like bad parents who can’t be bothered to ensure their kid’s lunch is taken care of.”
Some people even doubted that the story was true.
“I don’t buy it. Schools offer cheap alternative lunches for just this situation. I don’t doubt they wouldn’t let him buy a regular lunch – which is a reasonable thing when the would be purchaser doesn’t have money. There is no way the kid went involuntarily hungry though.”
The story was also shared on Facebook, where people seemed to be a little more understanding of the mother and son’s situation. Some of the supportive Facebook comments included:
“Ridiculous. Matters like this should be taken up with the school administrators and the parents, NOT the student. Lunch shaming them in front of their peers is bullying and isn’t there some sort of no tolerance policy for that?”
And:
“All kids should eat for free, breakfast and lunch no matter who you are or how much money you make. Just feed our children.”
One mom even shared a story about a similar situation involving her children at a different school.
She posted:
“This happened to my kids last year in Hilliard, more than once. But the worst part was their account wasn’t truly negative. I deposited money in the morning online. I could see the money in their account, but at the school they didn’t show it. They were told to put the food back. I was furious!!”
While it’s not likely that anyone will agree on who is to blame in this situation, it sure isn’t the student. Some schools have special programs to help kids who can’t afford lunch eat for free. Many schools also allow students to charge their lunches up to a certain amount or a certain amount of times.
There are also many schools that provide lunch to students for free.
For many students, school lunch is the only time they get to enjoy a warm meal. Many kids go to school hungry and go to bed without dinner. When gets don’t eat right, they can’t perform well in class. It makes sense for schools to want to help their students eat breakfast and lunch.
No student should ever be turned away from a meal at lunchtime.
Schools that don’t offer free lunch to their students should still have a better program set up to help those who need it or even those who simply forgot their lunch money one day. Every student should get to enjoy lunch.
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