If you think back to your elementary school days, there are few things that probably strike as fond a memory as the ubiquitous Friday pizza days. Sitting around a table full of peers sharing smiles while chomping on shredded cheese melted onto a crust — either burnt or gummy raw — it wasn’t good pizza by any means. Rather, the elementary delicacy was the childhood equivalent of a frosty 4:00 Friday beer, a celebration of a week’s end.
To spend a Friday lunch period as the lone student denied a signature slice would have been unimaginable, but the lunchroom hypothetical will soon be a reality for Keller ISD students who have accumulated a meal debt of $25 or more.
In a report published by WFAA, a letter sent to Keller ISD parents by the district announced that an alternative meal plan will be introduced on Oct. 21 to help address “costly negative balances” that students may accrue over the course of the school year. After a student’s lunch balance is negative by $25, students will be denied the advertised breakfast and lunch offerings for the day and will be given a SunButter and jelly sandwich for breakfast and a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch. Students will also be given fruit and milk with each meal, the letter added.
It’s a policy that is troubling for Alexis Bylander, interim director of child nutrition programs and policy at the Food Research and Action Center. While the Center advocates for universal free breakfast and lunch meals for all students, Bylander is especially concerned with policies that penalize students over a situation they often have no agency in, such as depositing money in a school account.
“Meal debt accumulates for a variety of reasons, and there is a lot of pressure on the school nutrition department and the school to collect on that debt so that they don't need to cover it out of general funds,” Bylander told the Observer. “What that can translate into is practices of attempting to collect the money that bring a lot of stigma and shame to students who don't deserve it.”
While some states have passed sweeping legislation that grants free meals to students — like the bill passed by now-Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, who has bragged about banning student hunger as governor of Minnesota — many districts are left to dictate their own payment policies. (If you're wondering how our fair governor is working to ban childhood hunger, Texas was one of 15 states to recently turn down federal assistance that would have helped pay for summertime school meals.)
According to district websites, Keller ISD students pay around $3 for each lunchtime plate, a price on par with what is charged in lunchrooms at Grand Prairie ISD, Plano ISD and Richardson ISD. In Plano ISD, elementary students who incur a lunch debt do not receive an alternative meal, but secondary students with debt do. In Arlington ISD, lunch plates come in closer to $4 each, and students who have accumulated a meal debt are prohibited from purchasing “a-la carte” items, such as cookies, chips or ice cream, but their meal is not changed from that of their peers. Southlake Carroll ISD follows a program similar to Arlington's.
Dallas ISD currently offers free lunches to all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, thanks to the federal Community Eligibility Provision which uses demographic data to identify schools that qualify for free meals.
In some cases, Bylander has seen “unacceptable” policies be enacted by districts that have set out to recoup some of their lunch debts.
“Sometimes they will give students an alternate meal, like you're seeing in [Keller ISD.] Sometimes they will prohibit students from walking across the stage at graduation, or participating in school activities. We've even heard reports of families being referred to Child Protective Services for having unpaid meal debt,” Bylander said. “Shaming students over debt is unacceptable, but I think that schools really are in a tough spot because what do you do?”
That spot is especially tough for Texas schools. According to the Education Data Initiative, Texas is a nation-wide leader in childhood food insecurity, with over 1.6 million minors lacking reliable access to food. We are a leader in school lunch debt too, the study found, with almost $300 million in school lunch debt plaguing the state.
Keller ISD did not respond to the Observer’s inquiry into how many students are expected to be impacted by the new lunchroom policy. In the letter to parents, Keller ISD added that lunchroom cashiers will "proactively but discreetly" notify students with a negative balance as they approach the $25 mark, presumably to avoid the student feeling embarrassment or shame over the financial matter.
But there is nothing discreet about handing a student an alternative meal to the one their peers receive, says Bylander, who describes the cafeteria as a place where students are “hyper aware” of their surroundings. She added that, according to the Food Research and Action Center’s findings, programs like alternative meals or labeling a student as being in debt can lead to that student avoiding the lunch line during future meals.
“Why would a child keep going through the line if they are being shamed at the end?” Bylander said. “We want [students] to have access to healthy, nutritious, appealing food that is going to fuel their bodies and minds through the whole school day and support their learning. … [A lunch debt program that signals out individual students] is not a positive experience for the child. And that is something that can stick with them, not just for that lunch period, but can influence their entire school experience.”
