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Some have to pay, some don’t. It depends on family income. Not all kids take lunch to school, some do, some also leave campus for lunch. When dealing with the US, rarely does every single of something do same things the same way. We do not have individual fees for public schools. We have taxes, but that is a bit different.
Kids can and do bring lunch to school.
For about 100 years it has been federal law that all schools provide low or no cost lunches to all students.
My wife’s school district even provides breakfast.
Public schools do not have “fees” as they are taxpayer funded. But for those who pay towards lunch a good is about $2.00 usually the student has a card that is scanned or a code they input so as not tobother with cash
It really depends on the school but most public high schools will have lunch for sale (it’s usually like $3) and most schools will also have reduced/free lunch programs for students from lower income backgrounds. Also most people I knew in high school brought a bag lunch from home
> **Does every single school do this?**
Nearly all public (i.e. government-funded) schools do it.
I say “nearly” because when talking about *anything* about US education, you can never say “all do it” because, you know: it’s a big fucking country with 50 separate state governments and thousands of separate local (city/county) governments. Public school districts in the US are primarily funded and administered by the *local* government. The number and variety of state and local approaches to education means there’s always an exception.
Whether a school lunch is provided is less consistent among private (i.e., *not* government-funded) schools.
> **Is the food included with school fees?**
At public schools in the US, there are no school fees (except maybe for some extra-curricular activities). Primary and secondary schools (e.g. about ages 5 through 18) are free and open to all children and paid for by the government out of taxes.
At private schools … ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ It’s up to the school.
> **Do kids not take lunch so school?**
Except for boarding schools, there is *always* the option to bring your own lunch. Many students do.
Note: all boarding schools in the US are private. There are not public boarding schools.
> **Do kids have to pay for the food?**
Whether students pay or not usually depends on family income. Children of low-income families can get subsidized or free school lunches (and sometimes breakfast and snacks as well).
The funds for such subsidized/free school meals come from the Federal government’s National School Lunch Program and various state and local programs paid for by taxes (again, depending on the school district).
Not-for-profit private schools can qualify for the Federal National School Lunch Program, and, again, there are various state and local funding sources that may apply to not-for-profit or even for-profit private schools.
> **How does it work?**
Like any other cafeteria. You get in line. You pick up a tray. You walk past a line of food tables with hot and/or cold food items behind a sneeze guard. You tell the person working behind the tables what you want. You usually have 2-3 options each day. These days there’s usually vegetarian or vegan options; that was not the case when I was a kid decades ago. The cafeteria worker plates up your meal and hands it to you. You put it on your tray. You pay (or not, if you’re on the free lunch program) as you exit the line. You go sit at a table with your classmates and/or friends.
When I was a kid, decades ago, you had to pay in cash. Increasingly, parents can just load up an online account for their kid that is tied to the kid’s student ID card, and the kid can scan their student ID in the cafeteria to pay. Not only does this mean kids don’t have to carry cash for lunch, but it is also less marginalizing for kids whose lunch is being paid for through government assistance programs, because those programs can be tied to the card as well. When I was kid, if you were on the government assistance plan, you got paper vouchers each week that you used to pay for your lunch … so *everyone* knew you were from a poor family.
Menus are usually published a week or month ahead of time, so if on Tuesday the school is only serving food you dislike, you can know to bring your lunch that day instead of getting the school lunch.
You can definitely take your own lunch to school. I did 99% of the time unless square pizza was on the menu.
If you wanted school lunch (“hot lunch”), you had to bring in money. But there was also a reduced lunch plan if your family income was low.
On Fridays we also had Domino’s pizza as an option for like a dollar a slice or something.
>Do kids have to pay for the food? How does it work? Do kids not take lunch so school? Does every single school do this? Is the food included with school fees?
In order: Yes, hold on a sec, no, mostly, no.
How it worked in….
my Elementary School: You paid by the week, and you got what you got. The school lunch menu was posted in the local newspaper or handed out as a flyer so you could take it home. (The main advantage of that was that your parents would know what you had for lunch that day- people can get weird about eating the same or similar things twice in one day.)
my Jr High: My junior high only had “bring your own lunch” options. (You had that option at all three, but my jr high had no provided-lunch option.)
my High School: You had a choice of a few things, and paid at a cashier at the end of the row. It wasn’t quite like a restaurant, even a fast-food one (try asking for something custom!), but you had a choice of what you could eat.
Kids whose families couldn’t afford lunches had options, this whole thing about “lunch debt” is new and foreign to me.
>Do kids have to pay for the food?
As with all things in public schools this varies by state. Some states offer free school lunches to everyone. Some states school lunch is free if your family is below a certain income level.
Even when I had to pay for school lunches back in the 90s it was like $1.50. my mom would just give me a couple dollars every morning to buy lunch.
>Do kids not take lunch so school?
That is an option that some kids do. But in my experience the majority get lunch at school.
>Does every single school do this?
The overwhelming majority of public schools have a cafeteria and offer lunch whether free or paid.
>Is the food included with school fees?
I’m not sure what fees you’re talking about? At least for public school you don’t pay anything to send your child to school. As for school lunches it varies a little bit by school but in general you pay for each lunch unless your state has free school lunches.
When I was in the system, we got lunch cards. 1 punch = 1 meal. Families who got assistance got the cards for free, families who didn’t had to pay. The purpose of the cards was to obfuscate who was receiving assistance and who wasn’t, to prevent bullying.
Depends on the school honestly.
At my school, you could either pay for a hot lunch, which was chicken tenders and fries, pizza, or a few other items, you could bring in your own lunch, or the high school seniors could actually leave campus for lunch.
Some schools provide lunch, some schools have pretty robust meal assistance programs, and some schools kind of led to everyone fending for themselves. It really all just depends.
In NYC, the country’s largest school system, all the students eat for free. I believe this is the same in some other states, cities.
> Do kids have to pay for the food?
this can depend. at the very least, students from low-income families will be provided food for free. some schools will provide free lunch to everyone. otherwise the food must be paid for. at my school, if someone who didn’t qualify for free lunch forgot their money, they wouldn’t be left to go hungry, but they would be given a sandwich instead of a hot meal
> How does it work?
again, this will vary. at my school, each student had an id number. they’d go into the cafeteria, grab all their food, and at the end of the line they would type their id number into a keypad and it would debit their school lunch account (or say you’re good to go if you qualified for free lunch). I think you could probably pay with cash every day if you wanted to, but it was much easier to use the account
> Do kids not take lunch so school?
they can if they want
> Does every single school do this?
hard to say, it’s a big country. but I’m betting the vast majority of public schools do
> Is the food included with school fees?
maybe for private schools. our public schools don’t have school fees which is why you could set up a specific lunch account at my school
Where I am from, each School District has a separate staff that are sometimes contracted to bring ingredients to school for food preparation. It is prepared throughout the morning, then set up for the lunchtime. There is a program that subsidized by the taxpayers that parents could opt into for School Lunch (Cafeteria Lunch) if one could not be provided for from home for a small fee. That fee also could be waived if the family doesn’t meet a certain level of income or the needs of the student are different from others. A student could also buy a School Lunch without being part of the program.
*In California, there are over 900 total School Districts that may encompass upwards of 782+ individual schools (Los Angeles Unified School District). We have, as of 2023, over 10,374 Public Schools and 3,821 Private Schools that have some form of “School Lunch.” My experience may not be in the middle of a Bell Curve for District, County, or State experiences across the USA.*
In general, the student has the option of bringing a lunch, or eating a school lunch. Also *in general,* they are not free, but many places have income-based discounts, and some places offer blanket free lunches, though these are few.
We don’t have direct school fees, as such, but we pay through our taxes.
> Is the food included with school fees?
There are no school fees for public school. School is free, you just need school supplies and sometimes transportation. Lunch is usually not included. Sometimes it’s free, but usually it’s a small amount of money each week.
You have the choice to bring your own food or buy food at the cafeteria. The ability to purchase food is for your convenience. It’s not compulsory to pay and use the cafeteria.
You can bring your food, but kids are already carrying a large portion of their body weight on their backs. If you don’t bring it, you have to pay. Most places do not help out kids who can’t pay and they just starve. Some kids get their lunch or lunch money stolen regularly. This is America.
Not every school does this
When I was in high school we got just under an hour to walk through the lower east side, Chinatown, or little Italy to find something to eat
There was a cafeteria but my school shared the building with two other schools. There was a middle school that used the cafeteria most. There was also a high school for kids learning English as well but I never really saw them aside from when they were walking through their entrance in the morning
Do kids have to pay for the food?
Yes and no. Depends whether or not you live in a state where everyone gets free lunch now. I didn’t know that students had to pay for lunch until 10th grade because one of my friends no longer qualified for free lunch. From elementary to high school pretty much nobody paid for lunch since the schools in my area had over 90% of students qualifying for free lunch. So watching TV shows having a minor plot line about being bullied for lunch money didn’t make sense to me when I was younger.
How does it work?
There’s a counter that has a cash register if you have to pay. We had to scan our student ID card for lunch to be counted.
Do kids not take lunch so school?
Kids regularly take lunch to school since school food isn’t that good most of the time. In my city, high school students can leave campus and buy food from nearby restaurants but it really only works well at one school since they have a whole street lined up with restaurants across them. My friends would normally just call their parents to bring pizza/hamburgers but now kids get it delivered by Uber eats.
Does every single school do this?
Public schools yes. Private schools it depends, most often they would have to bring their own lunch. One private school in my area hs food trucks that come by.
Is the food included with school fees?
No.Most public schools don’t have school fees.
Not sure of the differences between public and private schools, but here’s how it works:
1. If you’re eating the food the school provides, then you do pay for it. There are programs for free and reduced lunch if you qualify. Some places have and are beginning to provide free lunch in schools to all.
2. It works by having a fraction of the students attend a certain lunch period during the day.
3. Taking your own food is certainly an option. I did. The food is usually better anyway as cafeteria food has a reputation of being bad.
4. I’m not sure about private schools, but public schools should.
5. Not really. See #1. Also, public schools don’t really have a fee for general classes. I only remember paying out of pocket for band-related things.
>Do kids have to pay for the food?
In most states, yes. My state just passed free school lunches though, and there are a number of others. That said, school lunches are usually subsidized or sold at virtually no profit. A typical school lunch costs about $2. This would easily retail $6-$7 if it were sold in the cafeteria of the hospital I work at.
There’s also the option to buy ordinary food you’d buy at a store, like chips, yogurt, fruit, or ice cream. That’s sold at the same price you’d find anywhere else. This isn’t everywhere though and it’s usually older kids (middle school, high school).
>How does it work?
When I was a kid in the 90s and 00s, you paid from a pre-loaded account. Your parents either gave you a check to bring to the main office (or some designated person), or they loaded it up online. It’s probably entirely online nowadays. Your account was linked to your name and/or your student ID.
>Do kids not take lunch so school?
They can. The school gives out a lunch menu for the month and you can decide what days you want to eat lunch. My son was in (all-day) kindergarten in the U.S. before we moved to Canada. I’d just tell him what it was each day and circle which days he wants a packed lunch. Like most kids, he liked pizza day and chicken nugget day, but not burger day or turkey day.
And yes, as you can tell, our school lunches are generally not the healthiest. As a doc and as a dad, I find it bothersome that we’re loading kids up with fatty, greasy meals. But for some kids it’s the only guaranteed meal they get, so they want it to be substantial.
>Does every single school do this?
More or less. And based on this thread it seems pretty typical.
> Is the food included with school fees?
See above.
From the schools I’ve been to, about 6 different ones, they all had the same principle. One grade gets to eat, they finish (some kids pay for school food, some bring lunch, some get the free school lunches), then the next grade of kids go while the others go back to class. This repeats until all students are. Really sucked being the younger class because the younger grades would go first, but my appetite wasn’t there yet, so I wouldn’t eat as much. As a senior, we are later and was much nicer.
Every school has a cafeteria. I’m surprised by that part of the question. Where else would you eat?
As for exactly how things go, it’s going to depend on the exact school. Everything about school is handled at the local level so it changes from school to school.
Some kids pack lunch, some get it from school. The food obviously costs money, but the question is who pays for it. In some schools it’s free to the students and paid out of the school budget which typically comes from property taxes and state funds.
In other schools it’s only free to poor students who sign up for the free lunch program. The rest of the kids either have to pay cash each day or sometimes they have a prepaid account that gets debited.
More and more people are pushing to free school lunch for all kids. There are a lot of kids who qualify for free lunch and their parents won’t sign up for it out of pride. My mother was like that. She didn’t want to admit she needed the help. I never went hungry as a kid, but sometimes she did because she couldn’t afford lunch for both of us.
Yes, people pay for food in America, using cash or debit/credit cards. Private schools have fees, public schools are taxpayer-funded. Some people bring their lunch from home, others do not. Some pay full price, others do not because their income is below federal poverty levels.
While others have answered most of the questions there is a unique answer for michigan. Starting in covid lunch was being provided for free at least in my school district and many others. Starting this coming school year all schools will provided free breakfast and lunch for all students in michigan.