The bipartisan bill filed in the House and Senate would stop four “lunch shaming” activities in public schools but would not assure students would get a hot meal, says Bettina Elias Siegel, who writes The Lunch Tray blog. The congressional legislation was modeled on a New Mexico law that requires all children receive the standard school meal, even if their family owes money on a food account.
“Instead, the federal law would ban four specified and notably stigmatizing practices: requiring a debt-ridden child to wear a wrist band, stamping the child’s hand or arm, requiring the child to do chores, and taking away a child’s hot meal after it has been served,” wrote Siegel in a post carried on Civil Eats. But the legislation has nonbinding language saying that alternative meals, such as a cheese sandwich, should not be served and that students should be given the hot meal.
A spokesman for Sen. Tom Udall, New Mexico Democrat and a lead sponsor of the legislation, told The Lunch Tray that Udall wanted to target the most egregious forms of lunch shaming. It would have been difficult to get bipartisan support in the House and Senate if the bill contained all the mandates of the New Mexico law, he said. The executive director of the nonprofit group that spearheaded the New Mexico law said the congressional legislation was “a really good start” and would end some of the stigma.