猫咪社区

This article was originally published by , a nonprofit newsroom covering the forces shaping how and what we eat. Read more at .

Candrice Jones thought she was in the clear. It was the fall of 2015, and she had just submitted the necessary paperwork to secure free lunch for her son Kyrie, a seventh-grader at Coolidge Junior High School in Granite City, Illinois. This, she believed at the time, would lift a significant economic load off her plate. Jones was working various part-time handwork jobs for a temp company, and her husband was unemployed after suffering injuries in a car accident. Previously, he鈥檇 worked in warehousing. She couldn鈥檛 afford to cover the cost of a full-price, hot school meal every day鈥攏ot if she wanted to pay the bills, too.

Every day, Kyrie did what school kids across the country do. He punched his student number into a keypad at the end of the lunch line, ate his food in the cafeteria with friends, and got on with the second half of his school day.

But over a year later, Jones discovered that Kyrie鈥檚 free lunch application had been processed incorrectly. After she鈥檇 submitted it, the program covered Kyrie鈥檚 meals for just one month. Reimbursements then dropped off for reasons the school has not made clear to Jones. Instead of getting free lunch every day, Kyrie had been racking up lunch debt鈥攏early $1,000 worth of it.

Generally, parents can monitor their children鈥檚 lunch balances online. Coolidge Junior High, like many schools, uses a software system called Skyward to keep families updated on grades and lunch dues owed. But Jones didn鈥檛 use the program because Kyrie鈥檚 grades weren鈥檛 logged into that particular system. He has a learning disability and participated in an individualized education program, which provides its paper evaluations by mail.

It wasn鈥檛 until one of Kyrie鈥檚 teachers unintentionally caught a glimpse of his lunch account balance in passing that Jones was alerted to the error. A full year had passed, and the debt鈥攁 mass of incremental charges鈥攈ad accumulated into a single, daunting total.

鈥淚t鈥檚 almost a thousand dollars,鈥� Jones told me by phone. She couldn鈥檛 pay it off if she wanted to: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 even have it.鈥�

When Jones filed a second free-lunch application, the application 鈥渨orked鈥� and Kyrie鈥檚 lunches were covered for the remaining months of eighth grade. As for the lingering debt, a school administrator suggested making monthly payments.

Jim Greenwald, superintendent of the Granite City School District, declined to comment on the Jones鈥� case for this story, citing privacy guidelines. But he did point out that all students are served hot meals regardless of their ability to pay. Which isn鈥檛 the same as getting free lunch. Students still remain on the hook for every lunch they eat. That鈥檚 the reason why, even now, Kyrie鈥檚 middle school lunch debt remains on his record and continues to cast a shadow over his academic experience.

Now a sophomore at Granite City High School, Kyrie has been barred from attending any school events hosted by the district. He wasn鈥檛 permitted to attend homecoming at the start of his ninth grade year. Instead, he stayed at home and did Facetime with his friends who were at the dance. He didn鈥檛 attend homecoming last fall either, and isn鈥檛 expecting to attend prom when he鈥檚 a senior.

Kyrie鈥檚 case is unique because it stems from what seems to have been a clerical error, but it demonstrates the toll an unpaid lunch balance can take on a student and their family. It鈥檚 also just one facet of America鈥檚 ballooning school lunch debt problem. Schools themselves, in some cases, are struggling as they attempt to strike a balance between accommodating those who can鈥檛 pay for lunch and balancing their books.

---

There鈥檚 no official estimate on the cumulative total of school lunch debt nationwide, . But according to a survey of 1,500 school districts represented by the School Nutrition Association, median lunch debt rose from $2,000 to $2,500 per district between 2016 and 2018, and anecdotal stories from individual districts paint an increasingly concerning picture.

Local news outlets report on surges in unpaid debt on a regular basis, from , to , to name some recent examples. In December, The Washington Post that K-12 students in the D.C. area, which comprises multiple school districts, owed a collective $500,000 in unpaid lunch balances. At the end of the 2017-18 school year, Denver鈥檚 school districts saw meal debt rise to in 2016鈥攎ore than a 2,600 percent increase.

鈥淪chool districts nationwide are really feeling the squeeze 鈥� and, unfortunately, I think we鈥檙e going to be hearing more about this in the coming years,鈥� said Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association, referring to the persistence of school lunch debt. 鈥淔or a lot of districts, you鈥檙e looking at having to cover these costs out of the general fund. And if it鈥檚 year after year, and it鈥檚 an excessive amount of debt for the school district, that鈥檚 impactful to core educational activities.鈥�

Had Kyrie鈥檚 free lunch application been processed correctly, the school district would have been reimbursed for the cost of every meal he was served during the school year. The National School Lunch Program, which is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture鈥檚 Food and Nutrition Service, subsidizes the cost of lunch for low-income families.

鈥淚 felt bad as a mother because I couldn鈥檛 take care of the bill.鈥�

Students from families with incomes below 130 percent of the federal poverty threshold ($32,630 for a family of four) are eligible for free lunch. Students from families with incomes above that value but below 185 percent of the threshold ($46,435 for a family of four) qualify for reduced-price lunch. The exact are determined by an array of factors, including location and area poverty levels.

According to USDA鈥檚 Economic Research Service, the federal lunch program spends $13.6 billion on reimbursements annually. But funding comes with its own set of limitations. Schools are permitted to use the money toward obvious costs of running a cafeteria, like ingredients and workers, as well as indirect costs, like payroll and gas. However, they鈥檙e prohibited from using it to wipe out unpaid lunch debt.

They are, however, permitted to use the funds toward contracting a for-profit collection agency to collect that debt.

That鈥檚 why schools put so much pressure on families to pay outstanding balances. Some, as in Kyrie鈥檚 case, prevent students from participating in school events until the debt is cleared. Others go so far as to prevent students with lunch debt from receiving their diplomas. To Jones, this exemplifies a broken school-lunch system, one that uses students鈥� needs as collateral to leverage money from parents.

鈥淭hey know your kids are going to be upset. They know your kids are going to be mad. And so they know that your kids are going to press you to get this bill paid,鈥� she told me. 鈥淚 felt bad as a mother because I couldn鈥檛 take care of the bill.鈥�

---

Though total lunch debt varies by district, most reporting on the issue credits its rise to policies that prohibit the practice of 鈥渓unch-shaming,鈥� which refers to methods schools use to stigmatize students who can鈥檛 afford the full price of school lunch. Some schools who can鈥檛 pay, others serve them cold 鈥渟ubstitute鈥� lunches like sandwiches instead of hot meals. The practice has come under intense scrutiny in recent years.

Shaneka Jackson鈥檚 daughter, London, a first-grader in Baltimore County, Maryland, experienced lunch-shaming firsthand. Every day for over a month, Jackson said in a phone interview, London鈥檚 hot lunch tray was taken away, thrown out, and replaced with a cold cheese sandwich. She said she had noticed London鈥檚 eating habits changing at home but didn鈥檛 realize that they were linked to her lunch experiences at school. Until one morning when London, in tears, pleaded to stay home.

鈥淢y daughter was humiliated. A couple of her friends were teasing her in school because her food kept getting thrown away,鈥� Jackson said. 鈥淪he鈥檚 in the first grade, she鈥檚 only 6 years old. She鈥檚 never had anybody not feed her.鈥�

Jackson, an army veteran and single mother of three, works full time as a bartender at a well-known restaurant chain. And she knew that London qualified for free lunch under the National School Lunch Program income guidelines. But instead of that, London was given cheese sandwiches instead of a hot lunch because her school had erroneously recorded her lunch account as having a negative balance of $1.60.

鈥淭he issue is very complex and includes a range of factors from regulatory, legislative, economic, social 鈥︹��

Jackson said she was incensed that her daughter had been going so long without warm meals over such a minute negative balance, and that she was never notified about it.

鈥淭he days that my child was hungry and nobody said anything? That really made me so upset, angry, I was disgusted. I couldn鈥檛 believe it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 felt like less of a mom that I was unable to put two and two together with the signs that [that] was going on with my child.鈥�

In 2014, Food and Nutrition Service found that students were being lunch-shamed at 60 percent of public schools across the country. Since then, the practice has been widely criticized by parents, educators, administrators, and antihunger advocacy groups. In 2017, New Mexico . Many other states have followed suit, including Washington, Pennsylvania, and California.

Numerous news stories have suggested that an end to lunch-shaming is the driving force behind rising debt. But Keith Fiedler, director of nutrition services at Redmond School District in Oregon, thinks that鈥檚 an oversimplification.

鈥淭hat is a factor鈥攖here鈥檚 no doubt,鈥� he said. Fiedler has worked in school nutrition services since 1991. 鈥淸H]ad it just been that alone, meal account debt would have gone up, but it probably would have just gone up to a new normal that was a manageable cost of doing business.鈥�

Fiedler said there are many nuances in school food operations that contribute to the lunch debt issue, including rising food and labor costs. He also pointed out that USDA鈥檚 income guidelines for free lunch fail to accommodate for complex socioeconomic realities, such as high costs of living in many cities.

鈥淭he issue is very complex and includes a range of factors from regulatory, legislative, economic, social, financial, to pedagogical.鈥�

In the same 2014 study, the Food and Nutrition Service found that 35 percent of schools resort to 鈥渁dministrative actions,鈥� like prohibiting a student from attending homecoming because they鈥檝e got lunch debt. Another 6 percent of schools send unpaid bills to collections agencies.

The Columbia Public School District in Missouri is one such example. It鈥檚 the seventh largest district in the state, serving over 18,000 students. It also prohibits lunch-shaming. To curb its lunch debt problem, it signed a four-year contract with Hawthorn Recovery Services, a collection agency that goes after families with unpaid lunch bills. The agency retains a percentage of the sums it recoups.

When I asked Laina Fullum, director of nutrition services for the district, how much Hawthorn Recovery Services had collected, she declined to give a number. Fullum suggested this figure wouldn鈥檛 be reflective of the contract鈥檚 efficacy. She did say that often just receiving a letter from Hawthorn is enough to push parents to pay off debt directly to the district.

鈥淢oving forward, our measure of success would be that our debt doesn鈥檛 continue to accumulate or levels off,鈥� Fullum said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just trying to survive this new financial situation 鈥� in all the national school-lunch programs across the nation.鈥�

Columbia is far from the only district that uses a collection agency to recoup student lunch debt. In December, the Cranston Public School District in Rhode Island was widely criticized for . In the prior school year, it had written off nearly $100,000 in debt.

In 2017, California entirely to collect unpaid lunch balances. But for much of the country, debt collection and lunch-shaming are the best ways schools have figured out how to mitigate lunch debt in the near term. The long game is another story.

---

School nutrition advocates I spoke with said that universal school lunch is the surest way to guarantee healthy meals for all students without impacting school operating budgets.

鈥淭he issue of unpaid school meal debt really does shine a light on the challenges within the school nutrition programs,鈥� said Crystal FitzSimons, director of school and out-of-school programs for the Food and Research Action Center, an antihunger nonprofit. 鈥淚n an ideal world, school breakfast and school lunch would be offered at no charge to all students, and that would be the easiest way to solve school districts鈥� challenges with unpaid school meal debt.鈥�

That鈥檚 not as pie-in-the-sky as it may sound. Many low-income areas already serve lunch at no charge to students under a USDA program called Community Eligibility Provision, which was launched nationwide in 2014. Under that program, schools that serve a certain threshold of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches can simply bypass the logistical hurdle of collecting and submitting applications altogether.

The program has seen increasing participation since its launch. In the fall of 2017, the New York City School District鈥攖he largest in the nation鈥攂egan operating under Community Eligibility Provision. Today, its millions of students eat lunch at no cost during the school year and can also access free lunches through its .

As of the 2016-17 school year, less than half of eligible school districts had actually adopted Community Eligibility Provision, according to Food Research and Action Center. Although it can be an effective tool for feeding students in income-strapped districts, it does come with stipulations.

Advocates hope that the program will be adapted and improved in the future, because when it works, it works. 

First, schools aren鈥檛 actually reimbursed for every meal they serve to students. Instead, each district receives reimbursements for whatever percentage of their student body qualifies for free and reduced-price lunches, multiplied by 1.6. For many schools under Community Eligibility Provision, that means swallowing some operational costs.

The Redmond School District in Oregon was previously part of the program. But Fiedler said the district eventually left it because it got too costly.

Advocates hope that the program will be adapted and improved in the future, because when it works, it works. Unlike the free and reduced-price lunch program, Community Eligibility Provision takes paperwork out of the equation for families. It also relieves school administrators of the exacting responsibility of tracking down individual families to write off debt.

鈥淐harging some families and not charging others, and then school districts having to struggle to collect that unpaid school meal debt, is not a great situation for anyone,鈥� FitzSimons said.

Recall the Granite City School District where Kyrie goes to school. There, 17.6 percent of residents live in poverty, . That鈥檚 5 percentage points higher than the . Within the school district, a broad term that includes children of families who receive public aid, children in foster care, and children who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches.

In the 2015-16 school year, only the district鈥檚 elementary schools participated in Community Eligibility Provision. At the time, lunch debt for junior high and high schools totaled nearly $26,000. The next year, that number rose to more than $38,000. In the fall of 2017, the district expanded its participation to include junior high schools. As a result, the district鈥檚 lunch debt dropped to about $12,500, and all students from kindergarten to eighth grade could eat lunch without cost or paperwork.

But it was too late for Kyrie, who had moved on to high school by then.