In my state especially growing up we had free or reduced price meals for kids if their parents had low income or military. Recently Washington state as of this year has passed bill 1238 requires all local educations agencies to provide meals at no cost or reduced cost to students enrolled in elementary schools.
I personally think that all children should be allowed to eat free regardless of how much money their parents make. What do you think?
32 comments
Sure, why not.
Of course. If children are required to be in school for 6-7 hours a day it’s absurd that we’ve chosen to not provide them with food. For the fiscal conservatives, there are few better returns on investment than school meals.
Kids that are hungry are a disruption and don’t do well in school. Even if you don’t care about other people’s kids, you probably should – they can bring the whole classroom down.
When everyone does better, everyone does better.
Get kids more successful early? It seems like it could be a simple way to improve the country.
Absolutely.
I’d rather it be available, but you need to opt in. Food is better than no food. But I’d also be much happier with the allocated money being used for better quality meals for fewer kids than processed crap for everyone. There must also be incredible waste if they allocate food for all, but some kids bring their own lunch in.
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School lunch should be free for everyone at all public schools. More than happy to make breakfast free as well.
Edit: Just saw that Pennsylvania is making breakfast free. Major props to them.
yes
lunch should be free for all kids. i don’t understand why it isn’t. these are children, they don’t have jobs. no child should have to worry about having enough money for food in-front of their peers
YES! Any society which allows people, especially children, to go hungry when food is available is a failure
Of course! Minnesota just passed free breakfast and lunch this year!
MA just did.
Hell yeah, those kids deserve everything
They’re watching the world burn around them
And I’m just trying to figure out how to give the entire world over to them before it’s too late for their generation.
I’ve got kids now.
Fuck the stock market.
Yes. If children are required to go to school lunch should be included.
Absolutely. Public schools should opt for free lunch and offer more healthy options with real food. We pay taxes for the schools so we should see our tax dollars going towards improving public schools.
Yes, all of them should.
Michigan public school kids will all get free meals starting this year. I can think of few better investments of my tax dollars. https://www.michigan.gov/mde/news-and-information/press-releases/2023/08/04/michigan-children-win-with-healthy-school-meals-for-all
my lunch was free but crappy quality, i got salmonella once from raw chicken from the cafeteria
100%.
There’s no such as a free lunch.
It just shifts to the cost to the working middle class taxpayer.
Citizens are not responsible for feeding other people’s children. That’s a parental responsibility.
I think free school lunch should be required. No questions asked
Someone making $500K a year can afford to buy lunch for their kids rather than making people that make 10% of that pay for their kids lunch through taxes so they can have more money to spend on their yacht. It’s not like we didnt’ have “free” lunches before for kids that actually need it.
At my school, Back in the early 2010s, the eligibility criteria and documentation requirements for free/reduced programs often created a “donut hole” of families who didn’t really strictly qualify or couldn’t prove eligibility, but also had troubles providing lunch money every day.
School lunches were already heavily subsidized for students (something like approximately $3-4 cost per meal to serve, but only charging $2 to students) anyway, might as well go the extra step just to make sure nobody goes hungry because they’re in a rough financial situation.
Yes. Minnesota offers free lunch *and* breakfast to all students.
It eases family budgets, gives parents more time, and assures children are well nourished and ready to learn.
The problem with the school meals right now is that the burden is mostly on the parents to apply individually. School districts oftne do qualify based on census data, but the school has to do the legwork. Some in Indiana will do it, like Indianapolis Public Schools, the state’s largest district. But there’s other districts across the state that likely would qualify for free breakfast/free lunch but don’t because they don’t put in the effort.
So that’s one of the problems that can be fixed, but its going to take pressure form the voting citizens. And unfortunately hte people who would benefit the most probably don’t have the time or energy to go protest school board meetings.
Hell they’re taking hundreds of dollars out of our paychecks every week for taxes
The least they could do is use that money to fund the schools to give our kids a quality education and give them a free lunch and even breakfast that doesn’t look and taste like shit
Agreed.
Children should never go hungry.
Yes, I don’t know why they haven’t already.
Yes. It may not be the best food but some people dont get food at home.
Our son starts in Chicago Public Schools tomorrow… they get free breakfast and lunch daily.
I support free provided lunch for both public and private schools.
If we are requiring students by law to attend school, then the very least we can do is provide them with free lunch.
Plus it makes it generally easier to give it out to all, rather than waste money on bureaucracy and red tape determining who should and shouldn’t get free lunch.
My k4-8th private school that I work at and that my child attends has free breakfast and lunch for everyone. We are like 85+% low income and half are the children/siblings of Burmese refugees. I like that about half take breakfast and about 85% take lunch and that there is no stigma about “only poor kids take the free food!” The kids can also take breakfast and save it for snack since a bunch of kids don’t bring snacks.
I think if we want the best outcomes for our students, keeping their bellies full helps. I once talked to a different teacher who could tell when food stamps ran out at home. The kids would stop bringing lunch and snacks.
my kids is long out of public schools and fortunately never got free school lunch. I realize that not all families are as capable as we were, and not only think all kids should get free lunch but free breakfast too.
No kids should be hungry, ever, while we’re in “the greatest country in the world.”
I feel the same about healthcare. Poor people deserve the same care as the well-off and rich. To think otherwise is asinine, IMO.