Several charities and a rich dude attempted to pay off this lunch debt in full and the school district refused to let the debt be paid off.

How much more would it cost to remove these children from their homes??? Just feed them!!!!

What the actual eff? I thought school lunches were to feed kids, not punish the parents.

If you think this is bad check out what happened in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The school board eliminated poor kid lunch because A school-board member said families could "become spoiled" with free meals. this is an exact quote. Google it.

That's it? If I don't pay a bill they'll take my children? All three of them? (That's all I need to do to get rid of 'em? NOT pay a bill?) Could I get this in writing?

Instead of taking the kids into care because parents can't pay, why not give the parents the money that would be paid to foster parents, so they can afford food.

It's the RepugnantCon criminalization of poverty.

Inner city Philadelphia school breakfasts and lunches are free. Regrettably, in many cases it is all the kids will get to eat. However, in the suburbs where we live, school lunches are not free and you have to pay online to load up their school ID card they scan and if they don't have enough money on their card they can't buy whatever they were trying to get. There is nothing that reminds you of low balance, you just have to periodically check. That is why we pack lunches most times.

We (government) can't afford to feed your kids at school but we can damn sure add palm trees, fountains, boulders and rare tropical plants to 96 bazillion miles of freeway for nobody to look cuz that's more important

But certain Repubs wanted the Free Lunch system to end, and so it did. So now we have parents who can't afford to pay, and being threatened to have their kids taken away. Welcome to America, Land of the Free.

That's the country we live in. Money is more important than children. But hey, the right to own guns (and ignore "well regulated") is more important than children's lives here too. :(

I used to stand by the trash bins to ask people if they weren’t going to eat “that” so that my little brother and I could have lunch. Bullied a lot. Thank all the gods he does not remember. This was fifty years ago. We did not qualify for lunch assistance because my father, who did not live with us and was not helping, made too much money. This passes horrific but I can’t think of a worse word to explain it.

If kids didn't have lunch money in my school we were given a peanut butter sandwich so we had something and usually the parents were called. In my youngest siblings school they have a milk table where kids are encouraged to put the packaged parts of their lunch (like milk, fruit cups, little bag of celery and carrots) that they don't want to eat so that someone else can take it quietly instead of the food getting thrown away.

This is just bad financial management by the school district/municipality. Falling squarely on kids and their parents. take care of your budget and you wont have to create an unethical income stream. My kids public school district gets free lunch at least, thank Jeebus.

Being Aussies. My kids were used to taking a good home made lunch to school. Moving the the USA. They asked for school lunches like everyone else got. Not even a month and they said they didn’t want them anymore, they felt sick after eating cafeteria food, and tired and had stomach upsets, so they went back to taking their own lunches again. Much happier and healthier kids. Even their skin was looking greyish and unhealthy and we lived in SoCal IN THE SUN daily.

Yeah, that's correct. Same in England (Nationwide.) If you don't keep up with your child's lunch fees then the school will (after communication/ meeting with external agencies/ offering support etc) report the parent for neglect. It IS neglect of they don't pay and can't give an acceptable reason why. In England we also offer 'free school meals' for every low income family so if someone doesn't pay then it is a bit bizarre. Get onto social services straight away.