Teaching assistant Kelvin Holt watched as a preschool student fell to the back of a cafeteria line during breakfast in Killeen, Texas, as if trying to hide.
The cash register woman says to this 4-year-old girl, verbatim, You have no money, said Holt, describing the incident last year. A milk carton was taken away, and the girls food was dumped in the trash. She did not protest, other than to walk away in tears.
Holt has joined a chorus of outrage against lunchroom practices that can humiliate children as public school districts across the United States rethink how they cope with unpaid student lunch debts.
The U.S. Agriculture Department is requiring districts to adopt policies this month for addressing meal debts and to inform parents at the start of the academic year.
The agency is not specifically barring most of the embarrassing tactics, such as serving cheap sandwiches in place of hot meals or sending students home with conspicuous debt reminders, such as hand stamps. But it is encouraging schools to work more closely with parents to address delinquent accounts and ensure children dont go hungry.
Rather than a hand stamp on a kid to say, I need lunch money, send an email or a text message to the parent, said Tina Namian, who oversees the federal agencys school meals policy branch.
