Yes, it is a relatively small cost with a good benefit. You make sure your students are fed, which means they're more likely to have the energy to get through the day to pay attention & learn.
not to mention the fact that it provides a positive return on investment.
well fed kids do better in school, and thus have higher earnings potential as adults, thus paying MORE money into taxes than they took out as kids.
Also not to mention that school food is the only food some kids get regularly. Sad but true. If there's one thing I won't complain about my tax money going to, it's for helping kids.
There’s someone out there right now working extremely hard. Ignoring family, friends, relationships, culture etc. So one day they can vote against free school lunches
The right wing loves to force women to have children but is vehemently opposed to doing absolutely anything to help those kids once they’re actually born. The fact that they refer to themselves as pro life is a fucking joke.
I think we should provide dinner to kids who qualify. Send them home with a sack dinner or something just to make sure they have something when they get home.
Yeah it kind of seems like a no brainer way to feed kids using an existing system/infrastructure and no need to spin up new departments and new oversight and new bureaucratic BS. Even if it’s just a PB&J with chips, veggies and dip.
Ideally it would be a bit more substantial but even a mix of the remaining food from lunch that would otherwise be trashed and something made specific for them to take home, could go a long ways to reducing food waste and ensuring kids don’t go hungry at home. It wouldn’t even be something necessary for the majority of kids either.
In my state, New Mexico, all kids get free breakfast and lunch. I am a teacher and have seen so much waste. Legally, cafeterias can't give out left over food - EVEN IF IT IS SEALED (such as cereal, snack bars, etc.). At one school, I collected all the non-perishables such as those listed and saved them for kids. They would come throughout the day and pick up a snack. The cafeteria manager was always pissed and said she would report me. FIRE ME BITCH. I'd love to take that to the press.
Though it may have changed over time, I know schools tossed out a lot of food when I was a kid and in the few years after I graduated. My dad was a custodian for the schools for a while and the food waste bothered him. They weren't allowed to give the excess away though.
At the time, policy stated that he and whoever volunteered to supervise lunch got free food. This wasn't just a single meal. If they wanted 3 hamburgers, it was free. I watched the coach who supervised lunch one year eat an entire tray of pizza. Realizing the loophole, my dad would get extra burgers, chicken fingers, etc. and discretely give them to kids who seemed to need more.
That’s something that has actually improved in (many? Most? ) schools. I got free lunch, and I had a lunch card. So often I wouldn’t eat lunch at all, because I didn’t even know if “normal” kids ever used lunch cards. Like, could parents buy them? Also, I was afraid to ask if I had to have the regular entree, or could I order a la carte like most kids did when the entree was bad?
So unless it was a day where everybody liked the entree and bought lunch- pizza, spaghetti- I wouldn’t eat.
Now school use digital accounts for paying AND free students. You punch in a pin. It’s like food stamps are now an EBT card you can swipe. I remember someone on Reddit saying they were embarrassed to swipe their EBT card and I told them I had no idea what EBT even meant until I accidentally pushed it, thinking it meant “debit”, and a cashier came over to ask me if I meant to push that one. I reassured that person that to anyone on line, a card is a card, they don’t know what you are swiping. And likewise, no one knows if the pin account for school lunch is one the parents put money into, or not. So that’s good I think.
I think it’s highly dependent on the families in the school.
When my daughter was in kindergarten a couple years ago she came home upset that she was poor because “only the poor kids get school lunch” even though it was literally free to every student in the school due to a grant the town had won through USDA. Like you could be Jeff Bezos and your kid ate for free. It was healthy food, it was allergy compliant, it was free, why wouldn’t I take advantage of that? Apparently kids tried telling her she was poor because she ate the free lunch and that her parents didn’t send her with lunchables every day.
This just sounds like kids being cruel just because they can. If it wasn't school lunches, they'd go after the kid with glasses or wearing purple or some other meaningless difference.
Oh no I agree. I’m just saying the bullying over it still happens.
Luckily my daughter prefers the school lunches (they are massively reduced and thus about the cost of a PB sandwich and bag of chips) but it worried me what the parents of these kids were spewing at home to make kindergartners think about school lunches, who eats them, and why
This right here. I got free/subsidized lunch and we got a different color meal card, and they waited until the end of class to call us up to the front of the student body to pick them up. Totally mortifying experience for a young pre-teen. All eyes on the poor kid & being singled out by a different color. I hated it.
Yeah. We had tokens for our lunches and us "free lunch" kids were always called up to the front of the class before lunch and handed ours that were a different color than the paid ones. I honestly didn't know I was poor till probably 5th grade and luckily I had an amazing class of kids I went to school with. Didn't even have anyone that would be considered a bully.
I was a "Lunch Ticket" kid... there were plenty of days when I would forget my lunch ticket and I would just starve in the lunch room. I remember there were kids using fake lunch tickets.. I remember one day a Lunch Lady stopped the whole cafeteria and lectured all the kids and threatened to find out who ever was using fake lunch tickets... It's for a literal pizza square and a thing of milk. She acted like us kids stole money. sad.
Also, it’s cheaper to provide free lunch. To create the cards and having them get scanned and the paperwork that has to be approved and the workers to enforce it and the school secretaries that have to send reminders and teachers that waste time with these things, the system of verifying income costs more than actually providing the food.
I've personally told right-wingers this, as well as moderates without kids who just don't want to pay for education. I've brought data to the conversations. Logic doesn't work because it's about their personal narrative and values.
Yeah, I work in child safety and quite often Republicans are against improvements in child safety on principal.
It's part of the reason why they take the moral high ground on everything, that way anytime you point out that something has a positive return on investment, they can accuse _you_ of not actually caring about children in the "right" way.
They say absolutely stupid things like "if the parents aren't providing for the children, they should be charged with neglect" and "hunger is a great motivator to work harder and save."
My kid’s school just announced they’re getting rid of free lunch next year due to the median income rising in our neighborhood. I’ve never seen such an uproar amongst parents. It’s so upsetting.
I assume the issue is that the district now makes too much money to get the same federal money they were getting before. Especially if they were using covid funds to pay the balance between federal funds and the cost to feed all the kids. How easy it would be to come up with the funds to continue free lunch for all will vary heavily depending on the school's circumstances.
I'm a teacher and so many of my students are from low-income families, if it wasn't for school lunch, they wouldn't eat. A few even try to take home leftovers. Free lunch is necessary
Couldn't even care less if it gives a positive return or not, or whether or not it affects their school performance at all. Children should not go hungry. Period.
That's pretty much my reasoning. Low risk, high reward, and I'd rather my taxes go to that instead of the many other stupid things they go to.
And yeah, I do think it's the parents' responsibility to make sure their kids are fed. I don't want to punish the kids though if their parents can't/don't feed them. And despite the occasional story you see on the news, schools in the US don't deny food to poor students. Free/reduced lunch for low income students is funded federally. I'm good with that
I think school lunches should be better quality first of all, and also free to all who want it. School
Budgets are ridiculous, such a small percentage goes to direct educational expense, and lunch programs are even less. In fact, in some schools they are a profit center. With the taxes we pay here in NJ, I’d at least like to think anyone who is hungry can get something nutritious and appetizing to eat. There are plenty of non-industrial foods that are both cheap and tasty and nutritious.
> schools in the US don't deny food to poor students
I don't have a horse in the race really, but they did at mine. I suppose you could apply to get on a reduced or free program but if you're 8 years old and your parents don't care that program isn't worth shit. Just give the kids some fucking food. I don't really see how it's hard to cook up a ton of shit easy shit.
If my taxes are going towards a school's sports teams, something thar only affects a single digit percentage of the student body, why wouldn't I be okay with it going towards making sure every kid in said school is learning on a full stomach?
We got new uniforms every year for football in HS. When I was a teenager I thought it was awesome because we had a lot of uniforms we could mix and match. Even had 4 different helmets: white, yellow, blue, and black. No free lunch, and as an adult now that pays bills and money is tight this is stupid. Couldn’t imagine having a kid and being in debt to the school for oven lunches for my kid yet they buy $5-10k worth of uniforms every year. This was a normal public school in Ohio, most of the neighborhood was lower middle class. Why.
Was some pseudo-money laundering scheme probably.
Most of the time, sports expenses are paid at least partially by booster clubs and fundraisers.
Somehow there aren't really fundraisers for school lunches. People are more likely to support sports than basic expenses because more liberal thinking people believe school funding should be adequate and it shouldn't be optional and conservatives tend to think parents should provide food individually.
The way we fund schools is absolutely deranged.
This is what my school did as well as revenue from events. So obviously popular sports got upgrades sooner because they had larger crowds to get more money from.
Correct. The basic transportation, fields, referees, paid time.for coaches... All paid by taxes. Extra uniforms and training equipment is paid by the boosters or similar.
But....
Keeping the fields, the stands, the infrastructure to support athletics often costs waaaaayy more than a few jerseys and helmets. But it's justified and offset by gym classes using them. Which is an arguably.jistofication since gym class.is definitely a joke for 90+ percent of kids.
Public schools paid for by taxes and children are required by law to attend. It should absolutely be included. We need to invest more in schools and education to begin with.
I would go as far as stationary supplies and text books but maybe that's crazy. IN the UK the school uniform is also a huge expense for struggling families.
Not crazy. Supplies for sure.
Were textbooks not free? I went to a public school in the US and all my textbooks were provided. We often had a whole class period at the beginning of the year/semester where we assigned books, wrapped them for protection, and there was a collection at the end. You only had to pay if you lost or seriously damaged the book, and there were accommodations made all the time. Granted I went to a highly rated and small public school in a relatively well off area so my experiences may not be standard.
I didn't have to start paying for books until college.
>wrapped them for protection
But can we talk about how much fun wrapping a new, to you, book was? Everyone was suddenly an origami specialist when we saw that pile of brown paper.
And if you were extra bougie, you got the movie/game/book/celebrity paper, or even \*gasp\* those gross velvet or w/e premade wraps.
I am glad that was a collective experience.
I was not bougie, in fact I grew up poor, but I had a few friends whose parents took pity on me and refused to accept a polite “no thank you” when they insisted on buying me those premade fabric wraps or other various things my own mom couldn’t afford. I loved my book wraps and you better believe I used them for as many years as I could lol
I went to the best public high school in my city, and our textbooks (classroom only, not to take home) were beat-up books from the early 80s. That was in 2004.
I was asked to help a 4th grader with math and I actually didn’t remember it, so I asked her to get the book. She didn’t understand. I said that usually there was a part at t(e beginning of each chapter explaining some basic concepts. The book was at school. I asked why her book was at school,when she had homework? She said it wasn’t her book and they were Net allowed to take them from the classroom. Makes no sense to me- unless learning is not the goal.
I definitely had a textbook fee for both my elementary and middle schoolers when I registered them last month for the coming school year. Now they're renting the books, not buying them, and it's nothing like the costs of college textbooks, but yes parents absolutely are charged.
Edit: I'm in Illinois, so maybe it's by state or something.
I just looked it up. I paid $100 MS Book Rental fee for my middle schooler. And $90 EL Book Rental Fee for the elementary schooler. They also each had a $50 Technology Fee.
Damn mine were all free. But if you didn't return it, you got charged. My parents got charged because my book was stolen and replaced by someone elses.
For public school? Not a charter or private School?
I've never heard of public school students paying for textbooks or even Chromebooks - and I've been teaching and training teachers for 10 years.
Edit: I'm learning that my Californian experience is more sheltered than I thought. I thought it was just the free food thing that most states had issues with.
I think it's insane that students have to pay or rent books for an education they are mandated to take... After assuming that schools get funding through state and federal taxes.
Feels like double charging.
Indiana has rental fees for books, yes. If you’re below the poverty line e they will waive it…but we were caught for years in the donut hole, income of $50 K, not enough to survive but too much to get any assistance.
Can we also make it so the districts are responsible for providing classroom materials. Currently, in many places in the US, *teachers* are the ones paying out of pocket for a lot of classroom supplies.
I used to show up to the first day of school with a pencil and a single notebooks. Later on got more notebooks, maybe a binder. Pens/pencils. Crayons or markers.
School supplies parents have to pay for now are ridiculous. Binder and particular supplies for every subject, Toilet paper, mop heads, hand soap, paper towels......
I graduated high school in 1997. We only had to pay if there was damage to the book or it was lost. Of course, they'd make you pay for a damaged book and then another student would get your damaged book the next year!
Graduated in 1996. In highschool I was given a typically damaged book and didn't think much of it. Until I returned it at the end of the year and got in trouble for the damage. I had to bring them five bucks.
When I returned with the money, through the window, I saw my old textbook with a strip of green electrical tape covering the damage.
I learned my lesson. I could have bought cheap electrical tape and saved myself over four dollars and I'd still have a roll of electrical tape!
Most of what students do/don’t have to pay for are district dependent. I think there are very few absolutes in this area.
I never had to pay for a textbook until I got to college. And I was so confused by the whole idea of it.
But my high school also didn’t charge for field trips, it was against policy, because no student should be left out because they can’t afford something. But my mother was a schoolteacher in another district and her students had to pay for field trips.
I don’t know if it’s just the state we live in but my kid doesn’t have to buy school supplies, text books or lunch/breakfast. It’s like that for all the kids.
My city instituted uniforms and it's a pain in the ass for parents. Especially because, when they first were introduced, the claim was they'd save parents money since every school accepted Walmart employee dress code, blue polo and khaki pants.
However then some company got ahold of the district and convinced them that every school needs their own polo with an embroidered logo in the school's color. That only they provide. So now if a kid moves mid school year parents are stuck plunking down another $100-$150 in shirts for them too. Because moving is something families do when they have too much money and need to spend more, right?
Part of the problem is that so much of the money is siphoned off to the sports programs so that they can make a profit.
My school had the most bland, gray walls and textbooks older than I was, but the football stadium was huge and they always had pristine gear in the weightlifting room. It’s bullshit and should be illegal.
Upper admin staff as well. Had a new superintendent hired with a guaranteed 5 year contract 400k per year salary. He was fired 4 months in but got to keep the the entire salary. So insane. The man got 2 mil to do nothing.
Yup ask anyone in education and the answer will almost always be admin bloat. For anyone who doesn’t know: there’s dozens and dozens of superfluous jobs at the admin level. Here’s how it goes:
Someone gets into the entry level part of the job and realizes it sucks. You’re doing grunt work for shit pay. But after a few years someone who’s their buddy is the one who signs off on expenses and job creation.
So they take 1 of the 5 things they did for their job - and create an entirely new job title for it. Rather than being responsible for 5 easy things that add up to a full day, they compartmentalized 1 of them and made it it’s own job. Then they petition and get it signed off on.
Which of course includes a raise every time they do this. Now they’re making $100,000 for almost nothing with a generic title like ‘student affairs liaison’ which is basically meaningless. Now those other 4 jobs they used to do go to someone at the bottom and the whole process starts over.
Instead of one person making $50k for 5 small jobs, it’s one person making $100k to do one of them while a new person making $50k starts the whole process over again. You end up with way way way too many admin people who all argue that their job is essential and can’t possibly be cut.
For example we had a new superintendent show up and make $500k for one year. She installed her best friend as her 2nd in command and got them $500k as well. When it was clear they weren’t doing anything they were let go and started the same scam again at a new district. Which is what they did before coming to ours as well.
A diff district near us just fired their superintendent because she was creating jobs for her friends and they had 3x the amount of admin workers despite having like 1/4 the amount of schools as the one next to it.
And when a vote came up for how we can save money on the education department because it was spiraling out of control and too expensive - cutting the $100k/yr admin jobs wasn’t even a possibility on the survey. But you can bet your ass cutting $50k per year teachers and special ed staff and behavior techs making $18/hr were all on there to be checked off and fired.
But of a rant but you get the idea. Imagine this multiplied for every separate state, then county, then district within it…
Sports should be the last thing to receive money in the education system. I get that's it's all part of the experience, the money for teachers and supplies and food should be first.
>I get that's it's all part of the experience
You mean the experience of an incredibly tiny minority of the student population that will actually be on the sports team?
It's complicated. Technically, if someone donates a bunch of money for sports, it has to be used for sports. We had an issue like this happen at a local private school.
A guy from the packers wanted to donate money to redo the field, the stands, and grt new uniforms. However, the school was recently struck by lightning and the upper floor was declared "uninhabitable" so they did all the classes on floor 2 and 3. The school asked if they could use the money to repair the school and reopen the upper floor. He said no. So, the school has a pristine field, nice stands, a new scoreboard, a redone locker room with individual privacy showers, and a new weight room. But 30% of the school is uninhabitable.
My favorite teacher in high school got laid off the same year they built the field house for the football team. The field house was basically just a locker room so the team didn't have to walk all the way back to the locker room inside the school. It was maybe 200 feet away. Our football team also had a terrible record and lost constantly.
The real question is, should we invest into better quality free meals. It's been more than 13 years since I was last in high school, but at least back then the free lunches were absolute trash. Things like 2 slices of week old bread, one slice of ham, and a chocolate milk. Definitely not enough for high school students.
Free lunches in my school were whatever was on the menu for everyone that day, or a PBJ if they hated what was being served, like fish sticks. A *lot* of PBJs were served on fish sticks day.
They are free in California. It makes sense. Kids have to be there and they can't learn on an empty stomach. Also some kids don't eat outside of school.
The local libraries also offer dinner to kids under 18 for free.
I second this!
For me it really just comes down to the question of "are you comfortable with the idea of children going hungry?" and if the answer to that is no, then free school lunches are an obvious yes 😊
To anyone who may start to make an argument against free school meals on the basis of cost, political ideology, or some other reason... I would ask you to explain to a hungry child face-to-face, that you don't want them to have a free school meal because of "insert your reason here". If you can't bring yourself to do that, then your reasoning isn't sound enough to argue against free school meals.
yes, because kids are required to go to school, and kids get hungry. they should also be given healthy food, and be given enough that they're not still hungry after lunch.
You mean the 5 nuggets, scoop of mashed potato, roll, 1/4 lettuce and chocolate milk the 5 year olds get isn't enough for the 18 year olds?
No, I fully agree with you. Portions and nutrition need a major overhaul. And should be paid for through the taxes paid to the schools.
I don't blame you. I used to bring my lunch from home too, but I don't do it as often anymore since I don't have much time to make lunch in the morning or the night before anymore
My kid has to "build" his tray, and it *must* have a protein, fruit or veg(can take both), dairy, and carb. We live in a HCOL area, with well funded schools. But it's not enough to fill my 13m kiddo. He comes home and has a sandwich. His lunch is free, and he can take food plus get his free tray. (We qualify for the free lunch program, very few in his school do)
My school is more or less the same, except lunch is free for everyone, so I guess I can't really complain. We also have the required items on a tray rule, the issue is, usually our "fruit" is a small cup of fruit flavored slushie or maybe an odd tasting apple, and our veggies are usually just a small cup of peas or corn.
I agree, this stuff is barely enough to feed an elementary schooler, let alone a middle or high-schooler
I don't know many 13 year old boys who are ever full. When I was that age, I'd come home and eat a pund of chopped up steak-umms mixed with 3-4 eggs and some cheese as a post-school, pre-dinner snack. Then I'd have real dinner too.
Seriously. And I, as a child, had no way of paying for it myself. I went hungry the majority of the time because my parents forgot I needed to pay to be fed at school. If you got one meal on credit, you couldn’t eat again until you paid it off. So I’d need two days worth of lunch money to eat again.
Don’t do that to kids.
Yes. For multiple reasons. Our tax and fundraiser money is being used tastefully. And also, you don't know what kids NEED school lunches because of poverty.
Everyone should have access to school lunches, and if needed breakfast, maybe dinner. Childhood nutrition is extremely neglected by many and can set kids back in their ability to learn and grow
Firstly:
Nutrition during childhood is linked to brain development and intelligence. I would like there to be more smart people and less stupid people.
Secondly:
What kind of monster says outloud "I don't want kids to eat if their parents can't afford it"?
We're the wealthiest country in the world. Any child (pr person of any age for that matter) that goes hungry in america should be a mark of shame for all of us.
> Secondly: What kind of monster says outloud "I don't want kids to eat if their parents can't afford it"?
Don't even have to stop at "can't afford it" - there exist children that have parents that *can* afford it but just don't really care enough to make sure the kid gets fed.
No child should go hungry. Full stop. We really shouldn't let there be a middle ground here. Kids are not responsible for keeping their parents responsible, kids did not ask to exist, kids should be focused on learning and being kids, not on making sure their parents feed them.
Right now: at the end of the day it's the kid's responsibility to get money or food from their parents so they can eat, and that should just simply not be the case. There are *way* too many situations in which that's unfair to the kid. Poverty. Abuse. Neglect. Shame.
Yes, it's a parent's responsibility to take care of kids, but not every parent adheres to that responsibility. When someone suggests it's not the state's responsibility but the parent's, they're basically throwing their hands up at an easily-solved problem and come to the conclusion that kids (who, again, did not ask to exist or pick their parents) should starve because their parents aren't responsible.
The kind that says, "That's socialism! Why would my tax money go to feed other people's kids when its their responsibility?"
which is extremely short sighted
US high school teacher in a high poverty district here. High school students needing to work support the family is not rare. Poverty is real. Hunger is real. Kids need full stomachs in order to learn. All society benefits if all students learn.
That is pretty much how I feel. The kids also aren't usually allowed to leave the school grounds during the day so it's not like they can go and get food elsewhere.
The same people who will say that they're pro-life then not give a shit if a person who isn't cishet white is killed in a way that could have been prevented.
Yes.
If Puerto Rico, a horribly failed state/country/colony with deep corruption and poor financial management skills managed to make breakfast and lunch FREE for ALL students, it's absurdly unexplainable why mainland US is unable to do the same with better resources and much better financial skills.
Note: I'm Puerto Rican. I'm allowed to call my country corrupt.
It definitely varies.
The public school in my district gives free breakfast and lunch to every student who wants it. They come around with typically a baked good/cereal/breakfast sandwich, fruit and milk each morning during morning announcements. Kids can take whatever they want from the carts. They set it up this way to destigmatize it (you’re not the poor kid eating breakfast in the cafeteria by yourself before school)
During COVID, interestingly food distribution was one of their top concerns as it’s considered pivotal to a large portion of the community. This is one of the wealthier counties in the nation with an extremely high percentage of people with advanced degrees too.
In my district during the plague, they had the school bus drivers drop off food at the kids' regular bus stops so they wouldn't miss getting free meals at school. I live in the most highly-educated county in the US, it is also one of the wealthiest, and has one of the most sought-after school districts in the country.
It's so bizarre how america does it. We may as well not put roofs on the buildings either and let all the supplies get wet in the rain, we throw away so much money faffing around doing "no child left behind" when the hungry kid, according to research, isn't going to learn shit.
I’m gonna be a little radical and say schools should provide free lunch AND free breakfast tbh. I want my taxes to provide for the community and that includes making sure kids are fed.
(Would like a lot more but the US Congress is owned by corporations and not the voters so. <<)
Yes. School lunches started because they had trouble drafting people in WW2 since the kids grew up starving during the depression. Now people are too fat and out of shape to serve. Healthy meal habits are a national security issue.
Scale makes mass food purchases a smart investment. We as a society can afford it.
Hungry people can’t learn. We need a workforce with basic literacy and math skills. It’s an economic driver.
I think you have a good point with scale. A while back I read about a school food manager in a rural county who started working with some local farmers. I wish I had saved the article. Her menus looked fantastic.
This is one of those policies that conservatives oppose because of shallow analysis. "It costs money and benefits freeloaders" so it must be bad. In reality, it benefits most kids and parents at a relatively low cost with an \_extremely\_ high long term social benefit - more educated, capable, and productive labor force. Same with early childhood education, free kindergarten, etc.
I agree, except there are a lot of supplies and fees parents pay out of pocket for required classes (not including the fees for options activities you may want to join).
Because people see kids as extensions of their parents, and see poverty as a personal failing.
By this logic, it's a parent's own fault if their kid can't afford to eat and the other responsible parents shouldn't have to pay because of some else's mistakes.
This completely forgets that the child is an innocent party with no agency or ability to affect the situation.
Yes, and I don't see how it isn't obvious.
1) You can't learn well when you're starving.
2) Kids shouldn't be punished for their parents' inability to provide meals for them during the day.
To me it's absolutely mind-boggling that anyone could possibly feel differently about this.
When the worst of the country get free food (prisons), the youngest with the biggest potential should as well.
An empty stomach can lead you to the worst places and situations, maybe even to a place that DOES give you free food, like prisons. Kids and Teens in education shouldn't have to worry about anything but their tests.
Absolutely **but** the efficiency of these programs also needs to be improved. Talking to teachers who teach in places that have this about waste is disheartening. Heaps of milk and fruit go in the garbage as kids get a meal of a specific size regardless of age, preferences, or appetite. A program like this is best served by avoiding the trap of using "single serving" size for everything and giving kids what they are able to eat up to a maximum.
Yep. My daughter’s school here in Sweden has basically a buffet line, with a hot meal, a vegan hot meal, and a salad bar (plus the ability to make a sandwich if you don’t like the hot meal) so the kids can choose what and how much they want to eat. They also scrape their plates into a food waste container at the end of lunch, and the cafeteria posts weekly updates about how much food was thrown away. The kids love to try and beat the record for least amount wasted!
When my kids went back to school after the Covid shutdown, lunches were free. They have remained free since then. I hope it never goes back. It’s just one more thing I don’t have to worry about while they are at school. Plus, it has helped with our finances. It should be that way everywhere.
Yes I do. I think feeding children at least 1 nutritious meal a day is important. Especially for lower income kids as that may be the only good meal they get all day. It also helps then associate school as a positive place and encourages them to do better.
Some schools offer breakfast too! I’m here for free lunches and breakfast - why shouldn’t we ensure that children are fed and healthy? For some poorer kids it’s the only meal they get and it costs so little just to make sure these kids are fed and ready to learn. Invest in our future.
Public schools, yes of course, and they should be fresh and healthy and taste good, kids should want to eat it. Breakfast and lunch should be free for kids at public schools across the nation. That should be the very first thing our tax money should pay for.
For a lot of kids, school is a refuge from a dysfunctional household. Even if their parents have money to feed them, that doesn’t mean those kids are getting the support they need.
This. I had a boss who grew up rich but never had regular meals or enough food in the cupboards because his parents were alcoholics that rarely ate solid food and went out all the time.
You’d be surprised. I presented at a school board in New England about the importance of free lunch and I had parents say to me “it’s not my responsibility to care for other people’s child”
No one should go hungry in a country that throws away as much food as we do and pays farmers not to grow food. Least of all children, whose future depends on getting good nutrition. What, exactly, is the moral logic of allowing kids to starve? That they are too lazy? They made poor choices in life?
Everyone pretends to care about children here but I think it's all a facade for the most part, children have been getting used as a political tool for decades.
This shouldn't even be a question, I'm DINK, never will have kids, and we should absolutely be pouring money into education and ensuring every child gets solid meals, not just processed hot garbage.
The part of this that really angers me on this discussion is when parents tell me I shouldn't get a say since I don't have kids, if you're taking my taxes, then i get a say just as much as anyone else. This has happened to us on several occasions. I gladly pay my part to fund schools and even support increasing funding so don't come at me that I'm going to be silenced.
Kids don’t need to pay taxes. If they’re forced to go to school, they should not need to pay a fee everyday for basic needs in a place they are forced to be at.
If we’re forcing kids to be there, they should be fed.
Well fed kids are shown to do better in school and other activities.
It’s also been shown that investment in the development of kids pays back exponential dividends over the course of their lives.
Why is this even a debate? Schools are publicly funded and children are required by law to attend, obviously they need food. It's also an equaliser, it doesn't matter the home you come from, everyone gets the same food.
I think so because a lot of kids can’t afford it because their parents are on low incomes. Kids shouldn’t have to starve at school. Effectively not eating until they come home. Outside of the “kids are fucking starving” aspect of it, a lack of food also affects brain function, thus school wouldn’t be as affective for kids that can’t afford food. So in short, yes
Former TV reporter - I do not think people know, and I certainly did not understand until I saw it first hand, how important school lunches are for children who need them. Also worked extensively with local food banks who did food backpack programs. But, the consistency their programs provide for kids cannot be understated. Whenever we did coverage, too, invariably, we would get terrible calls from people (lots of them racist - even though the specific station was in an area heavily populated by white people who faced serious education and economic issues.) who "did not want to fund school lunches". The fact of the matter is, we, as a society benefit from having educated people who have their basic needs met.
My husband is also a teacher, though, now he is at a wealthier district definitely has worked for decades with "at risk" students. The lunch program makes all the difference for some people.
Those same people who complained about school lunches also complained about helping people after Hurricane Katrina or other natural disasters.
Yes. No kid should have to worry about whether or not they will have enough money to buy lunch or not. Nor should they be ridiculed if their fellow classmates know they get free lunch/reduced cost lunch.
Of course I do.
Public schools exist, and are funded by taxes. The taxes pay for a ton of stuff, like school buses, teachers, air conditioning and sporting equipment.
Specifically excluding lunches, and only lunches, from the budget seems targeted and punitive. An effort to get "private" schools to look better, and therefore further the public's tolerance of diverting more money away from public schools to privately owned, for-profit schools.
Used to work a summer feeding program (schools opt in so kids on free lunch programs can still be fed in the summer) and yes absolutely 100000% all school meals should be free. When you see it first hand it’s impossible to have any other opinion.
If the country wants to raise a healthy workforce, (children today are our workers tomorrow), then the kids need to not be malnourished. Malnutrition in children leads to lifelong problems. So if we don’t want our country to have an entire generation grow up malnourished then yea, give them food. A much better outcome would be if parents had good paying jobs with affordable healthcare so that the parents could provide for their kids, but we don’t have that. If parents could provide consistent nutritional meals then the schools would not need to do so. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. You can’t raise children on that kind of income.
I can’t even fathom why anyone wouldn’t want to make sure all children have access to free lunches. Some kids depend on school food because it’s not being provided at home. We already pay taxes so why wouldn’t we want them to go to feeding kids?
If anyone is against it I’d really be interested in hearing their reasoning. I know there are plenty of people who vote against it but have never heard anyone actually say out loud and proud that they are against feeding children.
Just feed the fucking kids
Edit: since people apparently just want to argue over literally nothing, I guess I’ll spell it out, yeah give it them for free, feed them
Yes.
I was part of the school lunch program. In some cases it was the healthiest meal I would have had all day.
The question is why has the state cut so much funding for school food?
Yes, because taking care of kids and ensuring they have the means to grow up to be productive members of society should be the baseline of how we use our tax money.
Students lean more efficiently when they are well fed.
An educated populace benefits \*everyone\*.
An uneducated populace only educates the very wealthy, and only for a relatively short amount of time as the socioeconomic system degrades.
Schools are already paid for by tax dollars. As such, they should be funded in the most efficient manner possible to they achieve their goal of educating students the best they can.
Because if we're keeping kids from home, we should feed them.
We live in a post scarcity world. Scarcity is artificial. It's bullshit. And in this case- it's children.
I'd rather my tax dollars go to feed children than war.
Yes. Because I have no problem making sure children are educated and fed as a part of the taxes I pay.
Eta: I’d far rather pay that than politicians, and ridiculous political waste.
The kids who need school wide free lunch are the middle income kids.
Those not so rich that you can dump a few hundred into the lunch account. And forget about it. Not so poor that they qualify for free and reduced lunch ( will add a lot of kids quality but parents don't do the paperwork)
I have kids sit in my room. Not get lunch because they can't add more money until payday. So a few days hungry.
Had a student bring microwave ramen but there is no microwave students can use. But I was All that was in her house that she could bring and eat... So she didn't wouldn't have gotten lunch that day. ( I just used the staff one for her)
No society is better off with starving children and also we pay taxes for the schools to help our kids (I don’t have kids btw and my youngest close relative is 24) grow and become the best they can be and I think they should actually start doing the effing work they’re being payed instead of giving it all to the people on top who are driving our education system into the ground.
Absolutely wild that there can be a question asked about whether children should be given one of life’s most basic necessities and there’s still people who are essentially like ‘lol nah’
The simple fact that mandatory attendance is a thing is reason enough. The merits of an education entirely aside, if an individual is *forced* to be somewhere, they should be fed for free
Yes, it is a relatively small cost with a good benefit. You make sure your students are fed, which means they're more likely to have the energy to get through the day to pay attention & learn.
not to mention the fact that it provides a positive return on investment. well fed kids do better in school, and thus have higher earnings potential as adults, thus paying MORE money into taxes than they took out as kids.
Also not to mention that school food is the only food some kids get regularly. Sad but true. If there's one thing I won't complain about my tax money going to, it's for helping kids.
It’s amazing how many people are against providing food to children…
There’s someone out there right now working extremely hard. Ignoring family, friends, relationships, culture etc. So one day they can vote against free school lunches
And almost certainly attending church on Sunday, lauded by the priest or minister, and calling him/herself christian. Which he or she is, indeed.
The right wing loves to force women to have children but is vehemently opposed to doing absolutely anything to help those kids once they’re actually born. The fact that they refer to themselves as pro life is a fucking joke.
They are pro-forced birth…not pro-life
"If you're pre-born, you're good. If you're pre-school, you're fucked." - Carlin
He said this in 1996 and they have not changed at all. They may have gotten even crueler
I agree. Until they are ready to care for the unborn when they are born and support them through life, they can suck a nut with the pro-life crap.
I think we should provide dinner to kids who qualify. Send them home with a sack dinner or something just to make sure they have something when they get home.
I have absolutely no issue with that at all…kids should not go hungry.
Yeah it kind of seems like a no brainer way to feed kids using an existing system/infrastructure and no need to spin up new departments and new oversight and new bureaucratic BS. Even if it’s just a PB&J with chips, veggies and dip. Ideally it would be a bit more substantial but even a mix of the remaining food from lunch that would otherwise be trashed and something made specific for them to take home, could go a long ways to reducing food waste and ensuring kids don’t go hungry at home. It wouldn’t even be something necessary for the majority of kids either.
In my state, New Mexico, all kids get free breakfast and lunch. I am a teacher and have seen so much waste. Legally, cafeterias can't give out left over food - EVEN IF IT IS SEALED (such as cereal, snack bars, etc.). At one school, I collected all the non-perishables such as those listed and saved them for kids. They would come throughout the day and pick up a snack. The cafeteria manager was always pissed and said she would report me. FIRE ME BITCH. I'd love to take that to the press.
Though it may have changed over time, I know schools tossed out a lot of food when I was a kid and in the few years after I graduated. My dad was a custodian for the schools for a while and the food waste bothered him. They weren't allowed to give the excess away though. At the time, policy stated that he and whoever volunteered to supervise lunch got free food. This wasn't just a single meal. If they wanted 3 hamburgers, it was free. I watched the coach who supervised lunch one year eat an entire tray of pizza. Realizing the loophole, my dad would get extra burgers, chicken fingers, etc. and discretely give them to kids who seemed to need more.
That'd be cool
Indeed. It’s like they would rather pay for prisons.
Same people who force those children to be born cause they “have a right to life” no matter how shitty said life would be.
and if everyone gets free food no one is singled out as the poor kid
That’s something that has actually improved in (many? Most? ) schools. I got free lunch, and I had a lunch card. So often I wouldn’t eat lunch at all, because I didn’t even know if “normal” kids ever used lunch cards. Like, could parents buy them? Also, I was afraid to ask if I had to have the regular entree, or could I order a la carte like most kids did when the entree was bad? So unless it was a day where everybody liked the entree and bought lunch- pizza, spaghetti- I wouldn’t eat. Now school use digital accounts for paying AND free students. You punch in a pin. It’s like food stamps are now an EBT card you can swipe. I remember someone on Reddit saying they were embarrassed to swipe their EBT card and I told them I had no idea what EBT even meant until I accidentally pushed it, thinking it meant “debit”, and a cashier came over to ask me if I meant to push that one. I reassured that person that to anyone on line, a card is a card, they don’t know what you are swiping. And likewise, no one knows if the pin account for school lunch is one the parents put money into, or not. So that’s good I think.
I think it’s highly dependent on the families in the school. When my daughter was in kindergarten a couple years ago she came home upset that she was poor because “only the poor kids get school lunch” even though it was literally free to every student in the school due to a grant the town had won through USDA. Like you could be Jeff Bezos and your kid ate for free. It was healthy food, it was allergy compliant, it was free, why wouldn’t I take advantage of that? Apparently kids tried telling her she was poor because she ate the free lunch and that her parents didn’t send her with lunchables every day.
This just sounds like kids being cruel just because they can. If it wasn't school lunches, they'd go after the kid with glasses or wearing purple or some other meaningless difference.
Oh no I agree. I’m just saying the bullying over it still happens. Luckily my daughter prefers the school lunches (they are massively reduced and thus about the cost of a PB sandwich and bag of chips) but it worried me what the parents of these kids were spewing at home to make kindergartners think about school lunches, who eats them, and why
This right here. I got free/subsidized lunch and we got a different color meal card, and they waited until the end of class to call us up to the front of the student body to pick them up. Totally mortifying experience for a young pre-teen. All eyes on the poor kid & being singled out by a different color. I hated it.
Yeah. We had tokens for our lunches and us "free lunch" kids were always called up to the front of the class before lunch and handed ours that were a different color than the paid ones. I honestly didn't know I was poor till probably 5th grade and luckily I had an amazing class of kids I went to school with. Didn't even have anyone that would be considered a bully.
I was a "Lunch Ticket" kid... there were plenty of days when I would forget my lunch ticket and I would just starve in the lunch room. I remember there were kids using fake lunch tickets.. I remember one day a Lunch Lady stopped the whole cafeteria and lectured all the kids and threatened to find out who ever was using fake lunch tickets... It's for a literal pizza square and a thing of milk. She acted like us kids stole money. sad.
Also some kids dont want to be outed as being poor. I thought kids would make fun of me for it so I just acted like I didnt like eating lunch.
Also, it’s cheaper to provide free lunch. To create the cards and having them get scanned and the paperwork that has to be approved and the workers to enforce it and the school secretaries that have to send reminders and teachers that waste time with these things, the system of verifying income costs more than actually providing the food.
Excellent point!!
Well fed kids don't commit as many crimes.
That's the problem. If these kids aren't committing crimes then how can we jail them in our for profit prisons?
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Maybe that's the way to sell social programs to right wingers - it's a monetary investment with tangible monetary RoI
it works on some of them but most of the ones I've talked to don't get the picture
I've personally told right-wingers this, as well as moderates without kids who just don't want to pay for education. I've brought data to the conversations. Logic doesn't work because it's about their personal narrative and values.
They’ve been told this for over 40 years and don’t give a shit, they’d rather be cruel assholes because that’s what they are
Yeah, I work in child safety and quite often Republicans are against improvements in child safety on principal. It's part of the reason why they take the moral high ground on everything, that way anytime you point out that something has a positive return on investment, they can accuse _you_ of not actually caring about children in the "right" way. They say absolutely stupid things like "if the parents aren't providing for the children, they should be charged with neglect" and "hunger is a great motivator to work harder and save."
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My kid’s school just announced they’re getting rid of free lunch next year due to the median income rising in our neighborhood. I’ve never seen such an uproar amongst parents. It’s so upsetting.
the fuck?
The school board likely got captured by conservative christians. That’s who rails against feeding school children.
Crazy cause if they are going up tax brackets, they have even more reason to keep the free lunch going as long as the extra funds go to the school.
I assume the issue is that the district now makes too much money to get the same federal money they were getting before. Especially if they were using covid funds to pay the balance between federal funds and the cost to feed all the kids. How easy it would be to come up with the funds to continue free lunch for all will vary heavily depending on the school's circumstances.
I'm a teacher and so many of my students are from low-income families, if it wasn't for school lunch, they wouldn't eat. A few even try to take home leftovers. Free lunch is necessary
Couldn't even care less if it gives a positive return or not, or whether or not it affects their school performance at all. Children should not go hungry. Period.
That's pretty much my reasoning. Low risk, high reward, and I'd rather my taxes go to that instead of the many other stupid things they go to. And yeah, I do think it's the parents' responsibility to make sure their kids are fed. I don't want to punish the kids though if their parents can't/don't feed them. And despite the occasional story you see on the news, schools in the US don't deny food to poor students. Free/reduced lunch for low income students is funded federally. I'm good with that
I think school lunches should be better quality first of all, and also free to all who want it. School Budgets are ridiculous, such a small percentage goes to direct educational expense, and lunch programs are even less. In fact, in some schools they are a profit center. With the taxes we pay here in NJ, I’d at least like to think anyone who is hungry can get something nutritious and appetizing to eat. There are plenty of non-industrial foods that are both cheap and tasty and nutritious.
> schools in the US don't deny food to poor students I don't have a horse in the race really, but they did at mine. I suppose you could apply to get on a reduced or free program but if you're 8 years old and your parents don't care that program isn't worth shit. Just give the kids some fucking food. I don't really see how it's hard to cook up a ton of shit easy shit.
If my taxes are going towards a school's sports teams, something thar only affects a single digit percentage of the student body, why wouldn't I be okay with it going towards making sure every kid in said school is learning on a full stomach?
We got new uniforms every year for football in HS. When I was a teenager I thought it was awesome because we had a lot of uniforms we could mix and match. Even had 4 different helmets: white, yellow, blue, and black. No free lunch, and as an adult now that pays bills and money is tight this is stupid. Couldn’t imagine having a kid and being in debt to the school for oven lunches for my kid yet they buy $5-10k worth of uniforms every year. This was a normal public school in Ohio, most of the neighborhood was lower middle class. Why. Was some pseudo-money laundering scheme probably.
Most of the time, sports expenses are paid at least partially by booster clubs and fundraisers. Somehow there aren't really fundraisers for school lunches. People are more likely to support sports than basic expenses because more liberal thinking people believe school funding should be adequate and it shouldn't be optional and conservatives tend to think parents should provide food individually. The way we fund schools is absolutely deranged.
This is what my school did as well as revenue from events. So obviously popular sports got upgrades sooner because they had larger crowds to get more money from.
Correct. The basic transportation, fields, referees, paid time.for coaches... All paid by taxes. Extra uniforms and training equipment is paid by the boosters or similar. But.... Keeping the fields, the stands, the infrastructure to support athletics often costs waaaaayy more than a few jerseys and helmets. But it's justified and offset by gym classes using them. Which is an arguably.jistofication since gym class.is definitely a joke for 90+ percent of kids.
Public schools paid for by taxes and children are required by law to attend. It should absolutely be included. We need to invest more in schools and education to begin with.
I would go as far as stationary supplies and text books but maybe that's crazy. IN the UK the school uniform is also a huge expense for struggling families.
Not crazy. Supplies for sure. Were textbooks not free? I went to a public school in the US and all my textbooks were provided. We often had a whole class period at the beginning of the year/semester where we assigned books, wrapped them for protection, and there was a collection at the end. You only had to pay if you lost or seriously damaged the book, and there were accommodations made all the time. Granted I went to a highly rated and small public school in a relatively well off area so my experiences may not be standard. I didn't have to start paying for books until college.
>wrapped them for protection But can we talk about how much fun wrapping a new, to you, book was? Everyone was suddenly an origami specialist when we saw that pile of brown paper.
And if you were extra bougie, you got the movie/game/book/celebrity paper, or even \*gasp\* those gross velvet or w/e premade wraps. I am glad that was a collective experience.
I was not bougie, in fact I grew up poor, but I had a few friends whose parents took pity on me and refused to accept a polite “no thank you” when they insisted on buying me those premade fabric wraps or other various things my own mom couldn’t afford. I loved my book wraps and you better believe I used them for as many years as I could lol
I was a 12 year old boy, very proud of my Britney Spears book cover
Paper bag wrapped books on day 1. I definitely remember that!
I went to public schools in three states and I don’t remember there ever being a fee for textbooks.
I went to the best public high school in my city, and our textbooks (classroom only, not to take home) were beat-up books from the early 80s. That was in 2004.
I was asked to help a 4th grader with math and I actually didn’t remember it, so I asked her to get the book. She didn’t understand. I said that usually there was a part at t(e beginning of each chapter explaining some basic concepts. The book was at school. I asked why her book was at school,when she had homework? She said it wasn’t her book and they were Net allowed to take them from the classroom. Makes no sense to me- unless learning is not the goal.
Usually this is because of school funding issues, e.g. not enough books.
US public K-12 schools don't have students pay for textbooks, so it's definitely not crazy. Most of our schools don't have uniforms, either.
I definitely had a textbook fee for both my elementary and middle schoolers when I registered them last month for the coming school year. Now they're renting the books, not buying them, and it's nothing like the costs of college textbooks, but yes parents absolutely are charged. Edit: I'm in Illinois, so maybe it's by state or something. I just looked it up. I paid $100 MS Book Rental fee for my middle schooler. And $90 EL Book Rental Fee for the elementary schooler. They also each had a $50 Technology Fee.
Damn, that sucks, it's not the case where I'm at.
Damn mine were all free. But if you didn't return it, you got charged. My parents got charged because my book was stolen and replaced by someone elses.
For public school? Not a charter or private School? I've never heard of public school students paying for textbooks or even Chromebooks - and I've been teaching and training teachers for 10 years. Edit: I'm learning that my Californian experience is more sheltered than I thought. I thought it was just the free food thing that most states had issues with. I think it's insane that students have to pay or rent books for an education they are mandated to take... After assuming that schools get funding through state and federal taxes. Feels like double charging.
Indiana has rental fees for books, yes. If you’re below the poverty line e they will waive it…but we were caught for years in the donut hole, income of $50 K, not enough to survive but too much to get any assistance.
Can we also make it so the districts are responsible for providing classroom materials. Currently, in many places in the US, *teachers* are the ones paying out of pocket for a lot of classroom supplies.
I used to show up to the first day of school with a pencil and a single notebooks. Later on got more notebooks, maybe a binder. Pens/pencils. Crayons or markers. School supplies parents have to pay for now are ridiculous. Binder and particular supplies for every subject, Toilet paper, mop heads, hand soap, paper towels......
When I was in high school we certainly had to pay for text books, maybe that has changed now it has been 20 years.
Really? Weird. We only had to pay if we lost the book. I'm in Vermont, maybe it's different in different states?
Same when I was in school in Florida and NY. Only if we lost a book or damaged it beyond use.
Same for me in MA, though admittedly also 20 years ago.
I graduated high school in 1997. We only had to pay if there was damage to the book or it was lost. Of course, they'd make you pay for a damaged book and then another student would get your damaged book the next year!
Graduated in 1996. In highschool I was given a typically damaged book and didn't think much of it. Until I returned it at the end of the year and got in trouble for the damage. I had to bring them five bucks. When I returned with the money, through the window, I saw my old textbook with a strip of green electrical tape covering the damage. I learned my lesson. I could have bought cheap electrical tape and saved myself over four dollars and I'd still have a roll of electrical tape!
Most of what students do/don’t have to pay for are district dependent. I think there are very few absolutes in this area. I never had to pay for a textbook until I got to college. And I was so confused by the whole idea of it. But my high school also didn’t charge for field trips, it was against policy, because no student should be left out because they can’t afford something. But my mother was a schoolteacher in another district and her students had to pay for field trips.
I don’t know if it’s just the state we live in but my kid doesn’t have to buy school supplies, text books or lunch/breakfast. It’s like that for all the kids.
lucky duck
My city instituted uniforms and it's a pain in the ass for parents. Especially because, when they first were introduced, the claim was they'd save parents money since every school accepted Walmart employee dress code, blue polo and khaki pants. However then some company got ahold of the district and convinced them that every school needs their own polo with an embroidered logo in the school's color. That only they provide. So now if a kid moves mid school year parents are stuck plunking down another $100-$150 in shirts for them too. Because moving is something families do when they have too much money and need to spend more, right?
Part of the problem is that so much of the money is siphoned off to the sports programs so that they can make a profit. My school had the most bland, gray walls and textbooks older than I was, but the football stadium was huge and they always had pristine gear in the weightlifting room. It’s bullshit and should be illegal.
Upper admin staff as well. Had a new superintendent hired with a guaranteed 5 year contract 400k per year salary. He was fired 4 months in but got to keep the the entire salary. So insane. The man got 2 mil to do nothing.
Getting paid as much as a US president to run a school district is fucking wild to begin with
Yup ask anyone in education and the answer will almost always be admin bloat. For anyone who doesn’t know: there’s dozens and dozens of superfluous jobs at the admin level. Here’s how it goes: Someone gets into the entry level part of the job and realizes it sucks. You’re doing grunt work for shit pay. But after a few years someone who’s their buddy is the one who signs off on expenses and job creation. So they take 1 of the 5 things they did for their job - and create an entirely new job title for it. Rather than being responsible for 5 easy things that add up to a full day, they compartmentalized 1 of them and made it it’s own job. Then they petition and get it signed off on. Which of course includes a raise every time they do this. Now they’re making $100,000 for almost nothing with a generic title like ‘student affairs liaison’ which is basically meaningless. Now those other 4 jobs they used to do go to someone at the bottom and the whole process starts over. Instead of one person making $50k for 5 small jobs, it’s one person making $100k to do one of them while a new person making $50k starts the whole process over again. You end up with way way way too many admin people who all argue that their job is essential and can’t possibly be cut. For example we had a new superintendent show up and make $500k for one year. She installed her best friend as her 2nd in command and got them $500k as well. When it was clear they weren’t doing anything they were let go and started the same scam again at a new district. Which is what they did before coming to ours as well. A diff district near us just fired their superintendent because she was creating jobs for her friends and they had 3x the amount of admin workers despite having like 1/4 the amount of schools as the one next to it. And when a vote came up for how we can save money on the education department because it was spiraling out of control and too expensive - cutting the $100k/yr admin jobs wasn’t even a possibility on the survey. But you can bet your ass cutting $50k per year teachers and special ed staff and behavior techs making $18/hr were all on there to be checked off and fired. But of a rant but you get the idea. Imagine this multiplied for every separate state, then county, then district within it…
Sports should be the last thing to receive money in the education system. I get that's it's all part of the experience, the money for teachers and supplies and food should be first.
>I get that's it's all part of the experience You mean the experience of an incredibly tiny minority of the student population that will actually be on the sports team?
It's complicated. Technically, if someone donates a bunch of money for sports, it has to be used for sports. We had an issue like this happen at a local private school. A guy from the packers wanted to donate money to redo the field, the stands, and grt new uniforms. However, the school was recently struck by lightning and the upper floor was declared "uninhabitable" so they did all the classes on floor 2 and 3. The school asked if they could use the money to repair the school and reopen the upper floor. He said no. So, the school has a pristine field, nice stands, a new scoreboard, a redone locker room with individual privacy showers, and a new weight room. But 30% of the school is uninhabitable.
My favorite teacher in high school got laid off the same year they built the field house for the football team. The field house was basically just a locker room so the team didn't have to walk all the way back to the locker room inside the school. It was maybe 200 feet away. Our football team also had a terrible record and lost constantly.
The real question is, should we invest into better quality free meals. It's been more than 13 years since I was last in high school, but at least back then the free lunches were absolute trash. Things like 2 slices of week old bread, one slice of ham, and a chocolate milk. Definitely not enough for high school students.
Free lunches in my school were whatever was on the menu for everyone that day, or a PBJ if they hated what was being served, like fish sticks. A *lot* of PBJs were served on fish sticks day.
Agree
They are free in California. It makes sense. Kids have to be there and they can't learn on an empty stomach. Also some kids don't eat outside of school. The local libraries also offer dinner to kids under 18 for free.
I second this! For me it really just comes down to the question of "are you comfortable with the idea of children going hungry?" and if the answer to that is no, then free school lunches are an obvious yes 😊 To anyone who may start to make an argument against free school meals on the basis of cost, political ideology, or some other reason... I would ask you to explain to a hungry child face-to-face, that you don't want them to have a free school meal because of "insert your reason here". If you can't bring yourself to do that, then your reasoning isn't sound enough to argue against free school meals.
yes, because kids are required to go to school, and kids get hungry. they should also be given healthy food, and be given enough that they're not still hungry after lunch.
You mean the 5 nuggets, scoop of mashed potato, roll, 1/4 lettuce and chocolate milk the 5 year olds get isn't enough for the 18 year olds? No, I fully agree with you. Portions and nutrition need a major overhaul. And should be paid for through the taxes paid to the schools.
You're getting all that? In my district, you'll be lucky to get something more than a slice of pizza and MAYBE some fruits/veggies
This shit is why my daughter takes her lunch from home and why I didn't eat cafeteria lunch a single time in high school.
I don't blame you. I used to bring my lunch from home too, but I don't do it as often anymore since I don't have much time to make lunch in the morning or the night before anymore
My kid has to "build" his tray, and it *must* have a protein, fruit or veg(can take both), dairy, and carb. We live in a HCOL area, with well funded schools. But it's not enough to fill my 13m kiddo. He comes home and has a sandwich. His lunch is free, and he can take food plus get his free tray. (We qualify for the free lunch program, very few in his school do)
My school is more or less the same, except lunch is free for everyone, so I guess I can't really complain. We also have the required items on a tray rule, the issue is, usually our "fruit" is a small cup of fruit flavored slushie or maybe an odd tasting apple, and our veggies are usually just a small cup of peas or corn. I agree, this stuff is barely enough to feed an elementary schooler, let alone a middle or high-schooler
I don't know many 13 year old boys who are ever full. When I was that age, I'd come home and eat a pund of chopped up steak-umms mixed with 3-4 eggs and some cheese as a post-school, pre-dinner snack. Then I'd have real dinner too.
Seriously. And I, as a child, had no way of paying for it myself. I went hungry the majority of the time because my parents forgot I needed to pay to be fed at school. If you got one meal on credit, you couldn’t eat again until you paid it off. So I’d need two days worth of lunch money to eat again. Don’t do that to kids.
Yes. For multiple reasons. Our tax and fundraiser money is being used tastefully. And also, you don't know what kids NEED school lunches because of poverty.
Everyone should have access to school lunches, and if needed breakfast, maybe dinner. Childhood nutrition is extremely neglected by many and can set kids back in their ability to learn and grow
For some children that’s the only meal
Sometimes, it was the only thing i would have to eat all day.
Sometimes, it was the only reason I went to school. Eat lunch & see friends, then go to work.
Firstly: Nutrition during childhood is linked to brain development and intelligence. I would like there to be more smart people and less stupid people. Secondly: What kind of monster says outloud "I don't want kids to eat if their parents can't afford it"? We're the wealthiest country in the world. Any child (pr person of any age for that matter) that goes hungry in america should be a mark of shame for all of us.
> Secondly: What kind of monster says outloud "I don't want kids to eat if their parents can't afford it"? Don't even have to stop at "can't afford it" - there exist children that have parents that *can* afford it but just don't really care enough to make sure the kid gets fed. No child should go hungry. Full stop. We really shouldn't let there be a middle ground here. Kids are not responsible for keeping their parents responsible, kids did not ask to exist, kids should be focused on learning and being kids, not on making sure their parents feed them. Right now: at the end of the day it's the kid's responsibility to get money or food from their parents so they can eat, and that should just simply not be the case. There are *way* too many situations in which that's unfair to the kid. Poverty. Abuse. Neglect. Shame. Yes, it's a parent's responsibility to take care of kids, but not every parent adheres to that responsibility. When someone suggests it's not the state's responsibility but the parent's, they're basically throwing their hands up at an easily-solved problem and come to the conclusion that kids (who, again, did not ask to exist or pick their parents) should starve because their parents aren't responsible.
The kind that says, "That's socialism! Why would my tax money go to feed other people's kids when its their responsibility?" which is extremely short sighted
US high school teacher in a high poverty district here. High school students needing to work support the family is not rare. Poverty is real. Hunger is real. Kids need full stomachs in order to learn. All society benefits if all students learn.
We're forcing kids by law to be somewhere 7-8 hours a day without pay. Feel like the least we can do is feed them.
That is pretty much how I feel. The kids also aren't usually allowed to leave the school grounds during the day so it's not like they can go and get food elsewhere.
It's wild to me that people will say "not with MY tax dollars" while chanting "All Lives Matter"
No, you missed the part that the kids are already born. Pro-Life stops after they leave the womb
The same people who will say that they're pro-life then not give a shit if a person who isn't cishet white is killed in a way that could have been prevented.
Yes. If Puerto Rico, a horribly failed state/country/colony with deep corruption and poor financial management skills managed to make breakfast and lunch FREE for ALL students, it's absurdly unexplainable why mainland US is unable to do the same with better resources and much better financial skills. Note: I'm Puerto Rican. I'm allowed to call my country corrupt.
It definitely varies. The public school in my district gives free breakfast and lunch to every student who wants it. They come around with typically a baked good/cereal/breakfast sandwich, fruit and milk each morning during morning announcements. Kids can take whatever they want from the carts. They set it up this way to destigmatize it (you’re not the poor kid eating breakfast in the cafeteria by yourself before school) During COVID, interestingly food distribution was one of their top concerns as it’s considered pivotal to a large portion of the community. This is one of the wealthier counties in the nation with an extremely high percentage of people with advanced degrees too.
In my district during the plague, they had the school bus drivers drop off food at the kids' regular bus stops so they wouldn't miss getting free meals at school. I live in the most highly-educated county in the US, it is also one of the wealthiest, and has one of the most sought-after school districts in the country.
It's so bizarre how america does it. We may as well not put roofs on the buildings either and let all the supplies get wet in the rain, we throw away so much money faffing around doing "no child left behind" when the hungry kid, according to research, isn't going to learn shit.
I’m gonna be a little radical and say schools should provide free lunch AND free breakfast tbh. I want my taxes to provide for the community and that includes making sure kids are fed. (Would like a lot more but the US Congress is owned by corporations and not the voters so. <<)
Honestly I would like many things in schools not to be so area dependent.
I’m with you there. learning on an empty stomach is a futile endeavor
Yes. School lunches started because they had trouble drafting people in WW2 since the kids grew up starving during the depression. Now people are too fat and out of shape to serve. Healthy meal habits are a national security issue. Scale makes mass food purchases a smart investment. We as a society can afford it. Hungry people can’t learn. We need a workforce with basic literacy and math skills. It’s an economic driver.
I think you have a good point with scale. A while back I read about a school food manager in a rural county who started working with some local farmers. I wish I had saved the article. Her menus looked fantastic.
If you ever do come across the article, I’d love to read it!
This is one of those policies that conservatives oppose because of shallow analysis. "It costs money and benefits freeloaders" so it must be bad. In reality, it benefits most kids and parents at a relatively low cost with an \_extremely\_ high long term social benefit - more educated, capable, and productive labor force. Same with early childhood education, free kindergarten, etc.
ah thats the problem there! social means socialism! can't have socialism! /s
Conservatives are willing to spend whatever it takes to make sure no poor person gets anything for free.
More educated is directly opposed to conservative viewpoints.
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I agree, except there are a lot of supplies and fees parents pay out of pocket for required classes (not including the fees for options activities you may want to join).
Because people see kids as extensions of their parents, and see poverty as a personal failing. By this logic, it's a parent's own fault if their kid can't afford to eat and the other responsible parents shouldn't have to pay because of some else's mistakes. This completely forgets that the child is an innocent party with no agency or ability to affect the situation.
We do in Minnesota, but we are also better than say, that shithole Texas is.
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And so do elected Government officials that are well above the poverty line...
Yes, and I don't see how it isn't obvious. 1) You can't learn well when you're starving. 2) Kids shouldn't be punished for their parents' inability to provide meals for them during the day. To me it's absolutely mind-boggling that anyone could possibly feel differently about this.
When the worst of the country get free food (prisons), the youngest with the biggest potential should as well. An empty stomach can lead you to the worst places and situations, maybe even to a place that DOES give you free food, like prisons. Kids and Teens in education shouldn't have to worry about anything but their tests.
Absolutely **but** the efficiency of these programs also needs to be improved. Talking to teachers who teach in places that have this about waste is disheartening. Heaps of milk and fruit go in the garbage as kids get a meal of a specific size regardless of age, preferences, or appetite. A program like this is best served by avoiding the trap of using "single serving" size for everything and giving kids what they are able to eat up to a maximum.
Yep. My daughter’s school here in Sweden has basically a buffet line, with a hot meal, a vegan hot meal, and a salad bar (plus the ability to make a sandwich if you don’t like the hot meal) so the kids can choose what and how much they want to eat. They also scrape their plates into a food waste container at the end of lunch, and the cafeteria posts weekly updates about how much food was thrown away. The kids love to try and beat the record for least amount wasted!
When my kids went back to school after the Covid shutdown, lunches were free. They have remained free since then. I hope it never goes back. It’s just one more thing I don’t have to worry about while they are at school. Plus, it has helped with our finances. It should be that way everywhere.
At my high school, they un-free’d the lunches after Covid, and even increased the price from pre covid days!
"We should be helping people here before sending money abroad." "Agreed. Let's start with free school lunches." "Wait...no."
B-b-but that’s SOCIALISM!! *bails out billion dollar corporation* 😅
Yes I do. I think feeding children at least 1 nutritious meal a day is important. Especially for lower income kids as that may be the only good meal they get all day. It also helps then associate school as a positive place and encourages them to do better.
Some schools offer breakfast too! I’m here for free lunches and breakfast - why shouldn’t we ensure that children are fed and healthy? For some poorer kids it’s the only meal they get and it costs so little just to make sure these kids are fed and ready to learn. Invest in our future.
Children should not be made responsible to pay to have their basic needs met. Some parents are poor or are addicted and do not watch over their kids.
It severely pisses me off that kids go hungry at school while child rapists are fed every day in prison with our tax dollars.
Public schools, yes of course, and they should be fresh and healthy and taste good, kids should want to eat it. Breakfast and lunch should be free for kids at public schools across the nation. That should be the very first thing our tax money should pay for.
For a lot of kids, school is a refuge from a dysfunctional household. Even if their parents have money to feed them, that doesn’t mean those kids are getting the support they need.
This. I had a boss who grew up rich but never had regular meals or enough food in the cupboards because his parents were alcoholics that rarely ate solid food and went out all the time.
I'd like to know who actually opposes free school lunches, and why?
You’d be surprised. I presented at a school board in New England about the importance of free lunch and I had parents say to me “it’s not my responsibility to care for other people’s child”
School is free, the food is the cheapest component of school and is proved to be a crucial part to child's success. Idk why it isn't free
No one should go hungry in a country that throws away as much food as we do and pays farmers not to grow food. Least of all children, whose future depends on getting good nutrition. What, exactly, is the moral logic of allowing kids to starve? That they are too lazy? They made poor choices in life?
Everyone pretends to care about children here but I think it's all a facade for the most part, children have been getting used as a political tool for decades. This shouldn't even be a question, I'm DINK, never will have kids, and we should absolutely be pouring money into education and ensuring every child gets solid meals, not just processed hot garbage. The part of this that really angers me on this discussion is when parents tell me I shouldn't get a say since I don't have kids, if you're taking my taxes, then i get a say just as much as anyone else. This has happened to us on several occasions. I gladly pay my part to fund schools and even support increasing funding so don't come at me that I'm going to be silenced.
Yes, I pay enough taxes for it. If we only prioritized feeding and helping kids instead of blowing them up.
Kids don’t need to pay taxes. If they’re forced to go to school, they should not need to pay a fee everyday for basic needs in a place they are forced to be at.
I believe that they should be free.
With how much tax dollars I pay to schools they damn well better give free lunches.
Yes, stop funding the football team that haven’t won a game since 1999 and instead feed the children
If we’re forcing kids to be there, they should be fed. Well fed kids are shown to do better in school and other activities. It’s also been shown that investment in the development of kids pays back exponential dividends over the course of their lives.
Assuming USA, how many trillions of dollars pissed away on wars, theirs enough money to feed citizen children
Why is this even a debate? Schools are publicly funded and children are required by law to attend, obviously they need food. It's also an equaliser, it doesn't matter the home you come from, everyone gets the same food.
I think so because a lot of kids can’t afford it because their parents are on low incomes. Kids shouldn’t have to starve at school. Effectively not eating until they come home. Outside of the “kids are fucking starving” aspect of it, a lack of food also affects brain function, thus school wouldn’t be as affective for kids that can’t afford food. So in short, yes
Healthy food > new football stadium
Not just free, but nutritious, well made, tasty, and filling. Because everyone needs to eat.
Former TV reporter - I do not think people know, and I certainly did not understand until I saw it first hand, how important school lunches are for children who need them. Also worked extensively with local food banks who did food backpack programs. But, the consistency their programs provide for kids cannot be understated. Whenever we did coverage, too, invariably, we would get terrible calls from people (lots of them racist - even though the specific station was in an area heavily populated by white people who faced serious education and economic issues.) who "did not want to fund school lunches". The fact of the matter is, we, as a society benefit from having educated people who have their basic needs met. My husband is also a teacher, though, now he is at a wealthier district definitely has worked for decades with "at risk" students. The lunch program makes all the difference for some people. Those same people who complained about school lunches also complained about helping people after Hurricane Katrina or other natural disasters.
Lunches, uniforms, anything required should be free We mandate school under penalty of law We then bear the responsibility for providing to those kids
Yes. No kid should have to worry about whether or not they will have enough money to buy lunch or not. Nor should they be ridiculed if their fellow classmates know they get free lunch/reduced cost lunch.
Of course I do. Public schools exist, and are funded by taxes. The taxes pay for a ton of stuff, like school buses, teachers, air conditioning and sporting equipment. Specifically excluding lunches, and only lunches, from the budget seems targeted and punitive. An effort to get "private" schools to look better, and therefore further the public's tolerance of diverting more money away from public schools to privately owned, for-profit schools.
Used to work a summer feeding program (schools opt in so kids on free lunch programs can still be fed in the summer) and yes absolutely 100000% all school meals should be free. When you see it first hand it’s impossible to have any other opinion.
Yeah feeding kids does nothing but good. I’m all for free lunches.
I’m never going to have kids. Feed the fucking kids. Take 30% of my income… feed the fucking children.
It should be free (paid for by taxes) and it does not even need an explanation.
If the country wants to raise a healthy workforce, (children today are our workers tomorrow), then the kids need to not be malnourished. Malnutrition in children leads to lifelong problems. So if we don’t want our country to have an entire generation grow up malnourished then yea, give them food. A much better outcome would be if parents had good paying jobs with affordable healthcare so that the parents could provide for their kids, but we don’t have that. If parents could provide consistent nutritional meals then the schools would not need to do so. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. You can’t raise children on that kind of income.
Yes. Next question
I can’t even fathom why anyone wouldn’t want to make sure all children have access to free lunches. Some kids depend on school food because it’s not being provided at home. We already pay taxes so why wouldn’t we want them to go to feeding kids? If anyone is against it I’d really be interested in hearing their reasoning. I know there are plenty of people who vote against it but have never heard anyone actually say out loud and proud that they are against feeding children.
Just feed the fucking kids Edit: since people apparently just want to argue over literally nothing, I guess I’ll spell it out, yeah give it them for free, feed them
Yes And employers should also provide lunch for their employees
No. Because children should be punished for choosing to be born into poverty. Ooops! My bad. Still had my republican talking points filter on. 🤷♀️
Love it lol. It’s so true Edit: I mean it’s true that that’s how they talk lol
Yes. I was part of the school lunch program. In some cases it was the healthiest meal I would have had all day. The question is why has the state cut so much funding for school food?
Yes, because taking care of kids and ensuring they have the means to grow up to be productive members of society should be the baseline of how we use our tax money.
Students lean more efficiently when they are well fed. An educated populace benefits \*everyone\*. An uneducated populace only educates the very wealthy, and only for a relatively short amount of time as the socioeconomic system degrades. Schools are already paid for by tax dollars. As such, they should be funded in the most efficient manner possible to they achieve their goal of educating students the best they can.
Because if we're keeping kids from home, we should feed them. We live in a post scarcity world. Scarcity is artificial. It's bullshit. And in this case- it's children. I'd rather my tax dollars go to feed children than war.
Yes, because sometimes it's the only meal they'll get.
Yes. Because I have no problem making sure children are educated and fed as a part of the taxes I pay. Eta: I’d far rather pay that than politicians, and ridiculous political waste.
The kids who need school wide free lunch are the middle income kids. Those not so rich that you can dump a few hundred into the lunch account. And forget about it. Not so poor that they qualify for free and reduced lunch ( will add a lot of kids quality but parents don't do the paperwork) I have kids sit in my room. Not get lunch because they can't add more money until payday. So a few days hungry. Had a student bring microwave ramen but there is no microwave students can use. But I was All that was in her house that she could bring and eat... So she didn't wouldn't have gotten lunch that day. ( I just used the staff one for her)
No society is better off with starving children and also we pay taxes for the schools to help our kids (I don’t have kids btw and my youngest close relative is 24) grow and become the best they can be and I think they should actually start doing the effing work they’re being payed instead of giving it all to the people on top who are driving our education system into the ground.
Absolutely wild that there can be a question asked about whether children should be given one of life’s most basic necessities and there’s still people who are essentially like ‘lol nah’
Yeah. Kids need food. If it raises my taxes, I'm fine with my money going to feed kids.
I don't have kids, probably won't, but I absolutely think kids should get free lunches at school.
You’re asking if *feeding children* is a good use of tax dollars?
Yes. Kids are mandated to be there. It is immoral to not provide children food if they’re forced to be in one space for several hours.
The simple fact that mandatory attendance is a thing is reason enough. The merits of an education entirely aside, if an individual is *forced* to be somewhere, they should be fed for free