School Says It Will Throw Away Lunch Trays If Kids Don’t Have Sufficient Funds

A North Carolina school went viral for its memo to staff announcing a new policy: Kids’ lunch plates would be thrown away if they couldn’t pay for them

A North Carolina high school went viral on Reddit for a new policy that is so mind-boggling there is absolutely no way anyone could justify it. The school’s “Director of School Nutrition” sent out a memo to staff saying that students would no longer be allowed to charge items in the cafeteria and that if they had insufficient funds to pay for their meal when they got to the register, their lunch would be thrown away.

“I wish I had different news to share, but starting Tuesday, Nov. 1, high schoolers will no longer be allowed to charge in the cafeteria, whatsoever,” the memo reads. “If they get to the register, don’t have enough money in their account and can’t come up with the money, the cashier is to take their plate. Unless they come back with the money, the tray will have to be thrown away.”

This is the school lunch policy in NC. So if the students don’t have money they can’t eat? credit to the op who posted the picture and ty for doing so.
byu/LonelyCommunitys infacepalm

So, in other words, the food still gets wasted, but kids who can’t afford to eat go hungry. The school district loses money, and, again, for emphasis, kids who can’t afford to eat go hungry. Who came up with this policy where literally no one wins?

This is an especially troubling policy for a school to have considering that food insecurity is a major problem in the U.S. In 2021, 13.5 million families didn’t know where their next meal would come from. School lunches are sometimes the only source of consistent nutrition for kids in families that are living in food deserts, experiencing homelessness, or struggling to make ends meet. We can—and should—do better than implementing bogus policies like this one.