School lunch shaming will now be against the law in California

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a new piece of legislation that guarantees all students will receive lunch even if their parents or guardians have not paid their meal fees.
I think this is great- kids should not be singled out before their peers, nor should they ever go hungry in a country as rich as the US. Newsom is a great governor.

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Kids should not go hungry just because they have a negative balance. However there should be a way to force payment eventually or the family should apply for reduced/free lunch.

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Where is DoE Secretary Betsy DeVos on this issue?

How can students learn if their stomachs are empty.

Now mind you I am not proposing that State or Federal governments jump in and pay for all the lunch arrears of all the students across the nation.

Where is she on confronting the problem and finding solutions that keep parents and guardians in the loop and paying for their charge’s meals as they should.

Why is this still an issue in this day and age?

Where are our Democratic and Republican leaders, off attending $30 K a plate political fundraisers?

I agree!

It is insane how little school lunches actually cost per student per meal and how many students accounts across America are in arrears.

But it should never happen that the student is punished and especially in some way that the rest of the student body knows about it.

It will be interesting to know whether the problem increases after this law or gets better?

It may take an all of the above method of enforcement?

It should be simple enough simply to garnish any arrears from a person’s tax refund, if available.

I agree with not depriving the student of food and the system should be set up that if an arrears exist, that fact is not discernible by the school lunch cashier, only by school district accountants.

The article says the bill includes better ways to collect back payments.

There is…increase the cost of lunches for the rich kids to cover those who can’t pay. Isn’t that the American way?

Rich kids are probably bringing their lunch, to be honest.

I saw that. I am ok with this so long as we can collect back payment. I’d start by cutting off extra curricular activities. I wonder if their is a way to garnish state tax refunds as a final step?

Kids should never ever be denied lunch however.

I’d hate to see kids denied extracurriculars because they have deadbeats for parents.

Hang out at your local school during lunch. Observe the food thrown away. It’s an eye opener.

As long as there are triggers for limits on how far this can go, this is a good change.

Did you people not go to public school? Everyone knows who is and isn’t poor. Sure the school doesn’t need to publicize it but let’s not pretend everyone doesn’t already know.

I didn’t care or notice really.

Then you wouldn’t care or notice if you knew they couldn’t pay for lunch.

As a poor kid growing up in public school, neither I or any of my poor friends wanted anyone to get the idea we were rich kids, we didn’t like them.

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Guess so, only those nearby. I guess if they were not eating at all I would have,.

Other than the extremes I do not remember judging like that.

I am also talking like grade 6 and below. Lunches were different above that and yeah people started judging more.

I never ate lunch in high school, that was Marlboro money.

Yeah, I actually had an open campus in HS for lunch. Was awesome. I was talking about lower grades when I did that. My middle school was weird, you could buy like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and Hostess crap, i don’t even remember standard lunches.

I had only 20 to 25 classmates in my year level in Elementary School. At the time, the district had four elementary schools and on Jr./Sr. High School. For the most part in our rural, agrarian district, economic levels were similar for most students. The local doctor, lawyers and dentists kid might be better off than most, but not enough of them to form cliques. Actually, there weren’t really any cliques even in high school, again as most of the student body were of a similar economic background.