Minnesota measure would allow schools to serve lunch to poor students, not toss them out

[DonViejo]

By Travis Gettys
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 9:26 EST

Social justice organizations are pressing lawmakers to offer free lunches to Minnesota students who can’t afford their own.

About 70 percent of school districts in the state either refuse to serve children with negative balances on their lunch accounts or substitute a less nutritious cold lunch, according to a survey by Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid.

The survey found that 46 districts, or 15 percent, refused to serve students with lunch account deficits, although most allowed some meals on credit, reported the MinnPost.

Others upheld a policy to take a student’s lunch tray away and dumped it into the trash in front of students and their classmates, as cafeteria workers did in highly publicized cases in Utah and elsewhere.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/12/minnesota-measure-would-allow-schools-to-serve-lunch-to-poor-students-not-toss-them-out/

[Swede Atlanta]

1. This is a crime.........

We are arguably still the wealthiest country in the world and we cannot find it in us to ensure that all of our children can have a hot (hopefully increasingly healthy) meal while at school?

This just happened in Utah and I would have almost expected it in a red state but Minnesota? They are a fairly true blue state.

[yeoman6987]

2. Free Lunches for everyone

That is the only fair way to ensure these embarrassing situations stop happening. It is horrible for a child to stand at the cash register and have the cashier say, "1.00" please and the child having to say, "I am on free lunches" to the entire World. Just give everyone free lunches....yep even in highly rich Orange County California because that just takes all the negativity out of it. I feel horrible when I see someone in front of me at the grocery store using food stamps when the cashier says "sorry you can't have this item because your EBT card or whatever it is called" does not allow for it. The look on the person's face is defeatism. It is not like it is something incredible or anything. Our country treats the poor like shit.

[DonViejo]

5. Our schools provide a free breakfast to everyone and the class room

teacher handles lunch money, e.g., she/he gives the students a ticket for their lunch. No child has to stand at a cash register and say anything.

[yeoman6987]

6. That is a much better situation

I just hate to see kids "pointed out" as different. It is bad enough getting through school without the kids knowing you are too poor for a lunch. I know bulling has been stopped at the schools, but it still goes on. The teachers at your school are certainly doing it right.

[Autumn]

3. It's just a fucking shame that a bill has to be put forward to do this.

It's a disgrace, a fucking shame a bill has to be passed to do the decent human thing by serving food to the poor instead of throwing it in the fucking trash.

[Jamastiene]

8. That is what I was thinking.

Why should they have to make a law to do the right thing? Just change the school policy and feed the kids. It's pretty bad when lawmakers have to get involved to get schools to stop throwing food away and leaving kids hungry and humiliated.

[Autumn]

9. A fucking bill to feed food to poor children instead of throwing it away.

It makes me sick.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Minnesota law would allow inhuman

school officials to behave like human beings.

[octoberlib]

7. Bravo, Minnesota!

[Arcanetrance]

10. When I was in school the cashiers just asked your name and checked it on a list they didn't take

money unless you were buying something extra. They kept a list for the students on all the different lunch periods. I don't know how it would work across the country but seems like a good idea.