Do American kids really have lunch fees for school cafeterias, and do they follow a weekly food schedule like in TV shows and movies?
In Simcoe county, Ontario, Canada, our school experience was different. In elementary school, we brought packed lunches to eat in our classrooms with teachers. High school had a regular cafeteria where we used debit cards or cash for various food options without fees or schedules.
Are the shows realistic?
46 comments
Im not sure what you mean. Some kids bring food from home, some kids buy their lunch from the cafeteria, and some kids from poorer homes might have a voucher card they use to buy lunch in the cafeteria.
You can either bring your own food or buy something from the school cafeteria. The cafeteria has a calendar that will show what meal is served that day. You have to pay for the lunch either cash or you could buy a ticket at my school for 5 meals and use that if you didn’t want to pay cash each time. You could get a school lunch for free or reduced price of $.40 if the income of the household you lived in was below a certain amount.
Personally speaking yes kids do have lunch fees, my time in elementary school my parents would put in a fee online and when it was coming close to running out the cafeteria staff would stamp my hand because kids would forget they’re out of money and my parents would just fill it again, after elementary school I just brought my own lunch, I went to a public school.
Yes. I rarely ever got hot lunch (strongly preferred lunch brought from home). But when I liked something on the menu, my mom would send me to school with an envelope with a couple bucks I think. Bring it to the front desk. Then I’d be all set for whatever day I wanted lunch that week.
And yes they hand out printed menus for a whole month.
Poor kids get free lunches, middle class and rich kids have to pay or bring their own lunches from home.
Yes. If you’re family is low income they can apply for help but that has stigma attached. American cares about children until the day they are born.
Depends on the area. I grew up bringing lunch or paying for it. The pandemic started a service of providing the breakfast and lunch in pick ups for free when school here went online. Then they started a summer pick up program that same year, anyone could pick up the free breakfast and lunch from school if they needed it. They’ve continued this practice of free school meals so far and all this summer.
Now a days not really or at least not in Illinois but it varies state to state. For me at least when we had to pay or lunch it tended to be by checks that the parents sent in. And it tended to be month to month if I remember correctly.
My kids school has free lunch and breakfast and they give us a scheduled menu for the month.
I did when I was a kid (elementary school late ’90s til mid ’00s) but eventually I qualified for “free or reduced lunch.” So… it was free lol
Yes. Schools have cafeterias or students can bring their own lunches. There is a federal free and reduced lunch program for poor families. My kid’s district provides free lunch. However, the food is not good so I send lunch every day.
>High school had a regular cafeteria where we used debit cards or cash for various food options without fees or schedules.
Huh? You paid with cash or card, but there was no fee?
California now has free school meals at all levels in public schools
>used debit cards or cash for various food options without fees or schedules
What’s a lunch fee?
Anyway I was raised in a city I went home for lunch in elementary school and high school I paid for lunch.
Lunches are administered at the local level, and yes, most kids bring their lunch, and some buy it at school
Yes. But we also have free meals which usually consist of a sandwich, drink, and fruit/vegi. But you can also bring your own food and some high schools allow kids to go off campus for food. Although, that seems to be rarer these days. I was sadly left out as the year before high school, some seniors were caught vandalizing on lunch break and the school stopped letting students go out
In california, schools from K-12 provide hot school breakfasts and lunches for free.
Fun fact: I am 30 years old. I graduated high school but I never received my diploma. Why? Because I owe school fees including from lunch. I don’t remember how much I owe. My mom never paid any of it when I was in highschool so I just don’t get to have a diploma.
I’m… Confused by where you’re confused about fees. Kids here generally pay for lunch, just like you, there’s just usually an option where parents can preload an account with money for that purpose rather than having to give them a debit card or cash. This ensures the money is used for it’s intended purpose and, back in the day where this was a bigger issue, that bullies can’t steal it.
There are exceptions, a district or state may simply make lunches part of the operating budget of the school system and not charge a separate fee and low income kids will qualify for free lunch in most places.
Kids can generally bring their lunches at any age, though some schools may prohibit some items due to allergen concerns especially at very young ages. A teenager can be trusted to check the ingredients for peanut oil if they start sharing or swapping items, a 5 year old less so.
Different cafeterias work a bit differently, it just depends on the school. There will generally be one or more options that rotate daily for a complete meal. Some places also allow you to pick from a fairly static selection of items as well, so maybe there’s a line where you can get a sandwich and chips, a slice of pizza or maybe pick from a bunch of snacks like fruit, chips and granola bars. That line stays the same every day while another one is the rotating meal.
Generally the larger the school, the more options there are because economies of scale work out that way. A high school with a couple hundred students like mine just isn’t going to be able throw out as many options as a high school with a few thousand kids like the one my wife went to.
Yes or they can bring their own
If you used cash or credit card, wouldn’t that be paying a fee?
Depends where you live. In NYC, the largest school district in the US, all the kids get breakfast and lunch for free.
I went to a small school that only had 1 option for lunch.
I can’t exactly remember how it worked at first but eventually the switched to a computer based system where the student scanned their fingerprint to charge lunch to their account. The lady running the PC knew every kid’s name though and she usually had already manually looked you up and charged you before you even made it past the salad bar. The fingerprint reader was mostly used when she wasn’t their and someone else was running it.
You had to prepay lunch funds. If you had a 0 or negative balance you could still eat but they would remind you to pay. Eventually they send a letter to your house.
Our* parents let us buy lunch at school once a week. The rest of the days we brought it from home.
The lunch menu/schedule let us know which day we wanted to do that. You definitely wouldn’t want to waste your weekly opportunity on something you didn’t like much. Pizza day was always a good choice (although the pizza probably wasn’t very good in hindsight).
* My brother and sister and I
I don’t know what shows you been watching, but yes we have lunch fees. But because my family is lose income at the time, I have free lunch and there’s also a reduced fee lunch program as well. Also, my high school implemented a after school snack program where you can go to the cafeteria after school and grab a snack no questions asked. It used to be that you have to be a part of a after school study hall program. But nobody goes there anymore. So they just opened it to anyone who needs a snack to take home.
My first school we brought lunches and are in our home room until I think 3rd or 4th grade then we started eating our lunches in a the multipurpose room that we also had assemblies. Im middle school we went to another multipurpose room and then started having a catering company you could buy into using for the year providing lunches you could make salads and stuff from what was provided and stuff but you could still always bring your own foods. Im high school we had the same set up but someone of seniors could go off campus for food. At my second school everyone brought lunch and the older students could go off campus for food if they didn’t have any disciplinary actions pending.
It used to be kids brought lunch and purchasing the school lunch was an option. Then parernts started relying on it and continuing to pay. Now everyone expects the school provided lunch to be free.
Your question is slightly confusing because using the debit card would insinuate that you paid a fee.
So, yes, there is a fee. Elementary school where I live is $1.50 for breakfast and $2 for lunch. The middle/high school is $2 for breakfast and $3 for lunch. You can buy extras in HS and some middle schools. As well as always having the option to bring your own foods from home.
The breakfasts and lunch are all on a calendar labeling what will be served on what day of the week and some options are always available like cereal or chicken nuggets and pizza.
There is also FREE or REDUCED FEE breakfast/lunch that is obtained by filing out a form and disclosing your families earnings. A lot of families rely on this program to feed their children and it becomes an issue when summer hits. So, in some places (like where I live) they set up weekly food drops in the summer where kids can come and get lunch foods for the week, in a packed bag like a food pantry would hand out.
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Edited for a spelling error.
At my son’s school (in Florida) it was either bring your own, or I’d create an account on some weird site and enter my credit card info, and prepay his lunch account by some amount. And then he’d just give the lunch lady his ID number and get his food, and it would charge the account on that site. When the balance dropped below a critical value I’d get an email reminded me to replenish the funds.
It worked exactly like the toll road system we have here too.
Yes.
There are free lunch programs in most public schools for qualifying students.
But republicans have been trying to axe that for awhile.
Yes, we paid for our food. Some kids brought lunch from home. There were no reduced price lunches when I attended.
Yes. I couldn’t afford school lunches and just didn’t eat as a result at lunch time.
The tricky thing here is that each school handles things differently, and it changes from grade level to grade level.
When I was in elementary and middle school (age 6-13), parents paid for lunches via a punch card purchased from the school. We’d get a calendar each month showing what would be served on that day, and you could either pack a lunch or use your punch card to get a meal from the school.
In high school (14-18), our cafeteria operated like a food court. There were 5 or 6 different lines that each served a different kind of food, and you just picked what you wanted and paid with either your student account, cash, or card. Parents could load money directly into the student’s account, but it wasn’t necessary. There was some variation in what foods were offered each day at one of the lines, but the others were constant.
My daughter is just starting school, and her breakfast and lunch are included in the cost of tuition. Poor people get free tuition, so their food is essentially free. They’ll have a specific food offered each day.
When I started freshman year, my parent was told that parents normally send $5/day with their kids to pay for meals. Mine felt like that was way too much, so didn’t send me to school with anything at all, also no packed lunch. I ended up mooching off of friends and eating the very chunky salsa condiments, every single day of school for the first two years. After that, I got a job and switched schools and still hardly had the money, but had enough to feed myself.
I don’t know what shows you’ve watched, so no comment there.
In my school, you could either bring your own lunch, get a free lunch from the cafeteria …
… or if you were a fancy-pants and wanted to strut your stuff like a proper hormone-addled teenager? You could order some shitty food from the little mini-restaurant they had there. It was still garbage cafeteria food, but it was garbage cafeteria food you *ordered*, like a tiny little champion so that everyone could see that you had $5 to throw around.
Of course! And if you can’t pay one too many times, they take your tray of food away, in front of everyone, and dump it in the trash.
Then you get handed a sandwich instead.
Our district has free breakfast, lunch, and an after school meal for all students. You can even get two make a day during summer through a special program
Yes. You could either bring something from home, or add money to your account to eat the school’s cafeteria food. People who met a certain income threshold qualified for free lunch. My high school was also across the street from a strip mall and grocery store, within walking distance to several fast food restaurants so we were given the option to go off campus for lunch as well.
I work at a private school that serves low income kids. All breakfasts and lunches are free for all students as we are a part of the school nutrition program. Breakfast is a pop tart or cereal meal. Lunch has 3 options daily. A hot option every day. A deli option every day (Mon, Wed, Fri is some type of sub sandwich. Tues and Thurs are salads). And a Bistro meal every day (Mon, Wed, Fri are muffin meals. Tues and Thurs are bagel meals). Breakfast is a table in the entry way and you grab a breakfast bag, the fruit option, and a milk if you want one, and staff like me takes a tally of how many breakfasts are going.
If you bring a bagged lunch but want a milk, it’s 30 cents charged to your school account (we are only supposed to let them get it of there is money on the account which we actually don’t know as aides). That’s how it used to be before everything was free. The teachers/aides mark off who takes what, and the office would deduct the money from their accounts. Our poor lunch lady wouldn’t have time to take money lol.
A vast majority of the kids take a school lunch. I’d say about 85%. You may have one or two kids in a class that have a lunch from home. About 40-50% take breakfast depending on the day.
Yes, we have a calendar menu for breakfast and lunch that gets printed off each month and sent home with each family.
We have about 320 students K4-8th. We all eat in our classrooms. We are an older school with no cafeteria (we actually don’t have enough folding chairs for all the students if we put everyone in the gym). The kids take the breakfasts to the classrooms too.
Our private high school had an a la cart line and a hot lunch lime and only took cash. I’m guessing by now they have some type of cards. Everyone ate in the cafeteria or the courtyard (you weren’t allowed off campus at lunch).
It’s $4 at my kids’ school, so he brings his lunch.
Grew up on free lunch from the school because my family was dirt poor on the Southside of chicago. But yes, kids really pay… the free lunch was trash too. Good thing most of the lunch ladys had big hearts and would let almost everyone slide on getting the more “premium” stuff for free. Hell, the lady that was on the cookie station would take a few newports in exchange for cookies lol
Yes. Where I live it’s $2.50 for lunch. The schools all use an auto/debit system (you have to put money on the kid’s account and the kid uses a school code number to buy their food).
The lunch menu is announced ahead of time. It’s pretty much the same menu rotated every month. The kids get a choice of (usually two) options per day.
Some schools (usually high schools) sometimes have the options of buying other food (like pizza slices or chick fil a sandwiches).
Some kids do pack lunches (I think esp very young kids) but it can be inconvenient because a lot of our schools here are getting rid of lockers and not allowing backpacks indoors. (Even one of my kid’s elementary schools didn’t allow her to carry a bag, but forced her to carry all her heavy textbooks across multiple classrooms.)
Proud to live in one of the six states that had instituted a universal free lunch program in public schools
I remember forgetting to have my parents renew my lunch card a few days. They couldn’t call my mom to tell her, I as a 7-9 year old had the sole responsibility to tell her.
Sure I could get lunch on credit, but that only worked for a day.
One time I remember being sent to the office to authorize the credit.
They.
Forgot.
About.
Me.
Lunch was about 10 mins to closing when they realized I was still there. They were out of an item and gave me extra of something else.
I think my daily lunches were 70 cents.
At my school, in elementary you are given a calendar that tells you/parents what is being served each day at the cafeteria. Parents would add money to your account and they scan your school ID card to pay for your lunch (or just give them your student ID number). You could always bring a lunch from home too. They wouldn’t deny you lunch if you didn’t have money, your account would just go negative and they’d let your parents know, the account balance had to be positive or zero at the end of the year to move to the next grade.
In high school it sounds like it was pretty much the same system you had, there was always a variety of choices and you just paid for it with cash, a debit card, or your school account (which worked the same way as in elementary). Again you could always just bring a lunch from home or you could leave campus for lunch out somewhere.
Any grade level low income students could qualify for reduced price or free lunch. Schools also served breakfast before school, which benefited low income students in particular who often got free breakfast.
My first Elementary School in Nebraska had no school cafeteria. Students either had to go home for lunch, or if they live more than 2 miles away could bring their lunch and eat it in the gym. After that in schools in Louisiana and Texas, we had a school cafeteria. The menus only had one selection each day and they were usually published in the local newspapers the previous week. Anyone could bring their lunch if they wished, but no one went home for lunch. Finally when I was in high school in Houston, the school cafeteria had choices, and a snack bar that served hamburgers Subs or barbecue everyday. In all cases students had to pay for their lunch usually on a weekly basis.