A few miles outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Richfield High School students with more than $15 in school lunch debt had their hot lunches taken off of their trays, thrown into the trash, and replaced with a cold lunch, as reported by NBC News. After videos surfaced on social media, swift outrage kicked in, and the school district has apologized.
Around 40 students were subjected to this experience. In addition to humiliating students, it’s also just plain wasteful.
"We deeply regret our actions today and the embarrassment that it caused several of our students," the Richfield Public Schools shared in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday. "We have met with some of the students involved and apologized to them."
“There are multiple failures we had in this situation and our job is to fix it. First and foremost [in] the way we treated our kids. We should never leave kids with the feeling they had from the experience,” Richfield Superintendent Steven Unowsky told Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE 11, adding that the behavior of the cafeteria staff was inappropriate.
The alternate meal given to students with $15 or more in lunch debt includes a cold entree, a vegetable, fruit, and milk. Households are still on the hook for the cost of the alternate meal. Meal debiting procedures for the school district provide that when secondary students are carrying a balance of $50 or more, they may have “limited access” to school dances or special events.
Schools continually make the news because of the way hungry students are treated in the cafeteria. As Daily Kos previously covered, students are having their hot lunches replaced with cold cheese sandwiches or tuna. One school district went viral for its debate on whether or not to ban students with more than $20 in school lunch debt from going to the prom, ordering a yearbook, or attending field trips. One school district threatened to send kids with school lunch debt to foster care.
According to the Richfield school, hot versus cold lunch aside, students with school lunch debt are supposed to learn about this status from a social worker or guidance counselor in private. According to Unowsky, when a student approaches the cafeteria register with lunch, they are allowed to keep it, regardless of their payment balance. The cafeteria staff records the updated balance on the register (not verbally to the student), and from there the school calls a parent or guardian at home. If the debt remains, only then does the student learn about the debt from a counselor or social worker, who figures out if they need help paying for lunches. A student with a negative balance is informed of this status before going back to the lunch line, which is where they would have to choose the alternate lunch.
Minnesota's Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced the No Shame at School Act to combat school lunch shaming, and in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that makes school lunch shaming against the law in the state.
“One of the things we can do is model failure with grace. We absolutely failed in this situation and our team is working to try and rectify mistakes we made,” Richfield High School Principal Latanya Daniels told KARE 11. The apology is graceful—but every student still deserves food without a side of shame.
Here’s an interview with Richfield school leaders.