A school in New Jersey has proposed that they only serve tuna sandwiches to kids with an unpaid lunch debt. While the decision is aimed to discipline students and teach money management, many parents and staff do not agree with the decision. They think it’s a form of shaming the kid.
The situation warranted intervention by the Cherry Hill school district authorities because the South Jersey school district has accumulated more than $14,000 of meal debt. While there are kids who contributed to the issue because they don’t know how to budget properly, there are those who are from lower-income families who potentially can’t afford to pay for a meal every day. This is why the decision made may not be as popular with the residents of the area.
The assistant superintendent in New Jersey proposed a plan to correct student behaviour and prevent more debt from accumulating. Those who have an unpaid lunch debt of $10 will receive a meal of only tuna sandwiches. Until they can pay the school the money they owe them, these kids will only be eating the gross, soggy sandwiches daily. They originally decided to give peanut butter sandwiches, but the board members thought that kids may be happy eating them every day. Students who owe more than $20 will get no lunch at all until their debt is paid.
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To fix the monetary side of the issue, the district plans to increase the prices of elementary and middle school lunches from $3. They also intend to increase high school lunches to $3.10. This move is criticized even within the school board. For food-insecure households, this raise in prices is a big deal. It may just exacerbate the problem rather than fix it. As food gets more expensive, kids are less likely to be able to pay back their debts.
Other than making families’ financial problems worse, the move has also been seen as cruel. When a kid only receives tuna sandwiches, everyone else knows that they have unpaid debts to the school. This may leave some kids more vulnerable to social exclusion and bullying. In a way, the kid may feel like the school itself is bullying them. They’re being punished for either not knowing how to budget at a young age or for not being able to afford lunch every day.