Seven months after New Mexico passed a state law against “lunch shaming,” progress to end the practice is slow, writes school-food blogger Bettina Elias Siegel on Civil Eats. Few U.S. school districts have policies explicitly assuring that students will receive a hot lunch even when they owe money for meals, and many are silent on such stigmatizing practices as refusing to serve a meal or putting a distinctive ink stamp on a pupil’s hand or arm.
A survey of 50 large school districts by the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group, “showed no significant sea change” in policy, said Siegel, author of The Lunch Tray blog, despite the “almost universal disapproval” expressed by the public of lunch shaming. The School Nutrition Association told Siegel that there is a wide variety of policies among school districts and that some take different approaches to the issue depending on the age of the student. “But when meal charges and debt escalate, some districts offer students alternate meals as a way to preserve the financial sustainability of the program while making sure no child goes hungry during the day,” said an SNA spokesperson.
Half a dozen states have enacted or are considering lunch-shaming legislation. In Oregon and New Mexico, schools are barred from identifying children who owe money on meals or taking steps such as denying a meal, serving a less-attractive alternative, or using hand stamps. In Texas, schools are required to give students time to settle their debt. Still, when the grace period ends, “the statute is silent on how children are to be treated.” National anti-shaming legislation is moribund in Congress.