Today, Explained - No such thing as free lunch

Episode Date: July 26, 2019

A school district in Pennsylvania apologized this week for saying students with unpaid lunch debt might end up in foster care. The scandal is part of a nationwide crisis that has resulted in low-income students cleaning cafeterias or missing graduation ceremonies because of lunch debts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this episode of Today Explained comes from KiwiCo. It's a co that designs projects to spark creativity, tinkering, and learning in kids of all ages. They're offering Today Explained listeners the chance to try them out for free, to redeem the offer, and learn more about their projects for kids of all ages. Visit KiwiCo.com slash explained. Most American kids are nowhere near schools right now, but Pennsylvania somehow still managed to have a big old school scandal this week. And the scandal was somehow about lunch. A school district under fire for sending threatening letters to parents demanding they pay their children's outstanding lunch bills or risk their kids being

taken away and sent to foster care. One more time, just in case you missed that, a school district in Pennsylvania sent parents letters that threatened to take away their children if the parents didn't pay outstanding school lunch bills. I think the person that wrote that letter should think about having his children taken away from him and put into a foster home. On Wednesday, the school district apologized. Todd Carmichael, a Philadelphia businessman, offered to pay off the debt of $22,000, but he was turned down. Well, late today, multiple sources told CBS News the district will now accept Carmichael's offer and send an apology letter to the parents. But this fight over school lunches and school lunch debt isn't over.

Au contraire, it's ongoing all over the country. Students in Madison County staged a protest after a cafeteria worker ordered a classmate to throw out his lunch. It's part of a school policy aimed at students who rack up lunch debt. Any student with unpaid lunch debt will be given a sun butter and jelly sandwich instead of the option of a hot meal. We heard from 22 districts including the state's largest and found they're carrying more than three hundred and forty six thousand dollars in unpaid lunches. I was in lunch one day getting lunch, and a kid in front of me didn't have enough money,

and they had to put their tray down, and that made me sad. So I went home, and I asked my mom, what can I do to help? It's gotten to the point where students are passing around the hat to pay for other students' lunches. I'm collecting donations and I'm returning bottles to collect money to pay off their lunch accounts and put money on them. So we know just overall in and out of schools that more than 12 million children in the U.S. suffer from some form of food

insecurity, meaning that they don't have access to high quality foods consistently. Nadra Niddle is a senior reporter at Civil Eats. It's a website about food policy. When it comes to school meals in and of themselves, it's a little bit harder to say exactly how many kids are going without lunch. But we know that lunch debt is something that's likely in the millions of dollars throughout the country. Could you explain exactly how public school lunch debt works in the United States for those who aren't familiar or perhaps don't have a system where school lunch debt is even possible? Say you're a student who has a meal lunch account. Your parents put $100 on your lunch account, at some point, let's say three months into the school

year, it runs out and say, this is a proactive school. So they let the parent know your child doesn't have enough money in the meal account. And say these parents find out, oh, I forgot, they pay the debt. Maybe they're given a cold sandwich, they're given fruit and a carton of milk instead of a hot meal. Maybe that happens for three days, and then the parents pay the debt and it's over. For some kids, it could go on longer than that. And many schools and states have established policies in recent years that kind of forbid cafeterias from turning kids away. So some of those kids may never go without hot meals in those states or in those school districts. There are some school districts alone that have tens of thousands or millions of dollars of lunch debt. So schools are really struggling with their budgets.

And so in turn, they're putting little children into debt. Obviously, it's not the kids themselves, which is why so many people get so wild up and upset about this as they should. It's their families that owe the school money. And the reason you see so much outrage is why should students pay for their parents either not being able to afford lunch or for parents who are just negligent for whatever reason who may be able to afford lunch, but maybe forgot and just didn't. So the public concern is that the child is being punished for something that they have no control over. But isn't there already a government program to ensure low-income students get free lunch?

Yes. So there is a free and reduced lunch program, which should cover meals for students from low-income families. And if your family qualifies for those programs, you wouldn't be paying any money for lunch or you would be paying money at a reduced rate for lunch. So the government would subsidize meals for those children. So if the federal government does provide money and puts these kids in these free or reduced lunch programs, how do kids or families end up falling into debt? So they fall into debt because some families may not have ever filled out the paperwork that basically qualifies them for a free lunch. Some may not be familiar with the program and the school wasn't proactive in letting all families know. Some families may just feel like, I don't want a free lunch. Out of pride, they don't want any sort of government assistance.

And some families may be undocumented and they don't want to sign up for any sort of government program. The other issue is with the reduced lunch, where the families are paying 40 cents for lunch. Well, that doesn't seem like a lot. You know, say you have two or three kids and you're from a reduced lunch family. Even if you're paying, say, $1.20 a day, every day, it can add up if you are not making a lot of money. What's the experience like for a free or reduced lunch kid? Are they being shamed? Do they have to wear a different colored t-shirt or something? So when we get into the issue of lunch shaming, there have been schools that have put stickers

on a kid's shirt saying, you know, need lunch money. And so that really, yeah, I was joking. No, there have been school districts that do that. So outside of those, you know, really awful ways that some schools have lunch shame students, it may just be the kid gets in the lunch line, they give the cafeteria worker, you know, their the worker scans it finds out they don't have enough money and the worker will literally throw out the kids lunch in front of them and say you don't have enough money wow and i should also point out the reason why they dump these lunches is just because you know there's so many guidelines around food handling. There's been some cases where kids have been told that they need to do chores. So sweeping up the cafeteria, for example,

or doing some other sort of work to basically work off their lunch debt. In Minnesota, what we heard is that Minnesota schools were telling kids that they could not graduate until their lunch debt was paid off. Wait, so kids are actually being held back for lunch debt? So my understanding is that they're not technically being held back. So if you had enough credits to graduate from high school, they wouldn't stop you from graduating from high school, but you would not be allowed to participate in the graduation exercises or ceremonies. The other issue I've heard, and these practices are all illegal to my knowledge,

is refusing to hand over your transcripts. That in a way would be kind of blocking you from going on to college. Is anyone trying to fix this? So we have organizations who definitely are trying to fix these problems. Some are trying to do this simply by raising money for lunch debt. So there's a group, for example, called Feeding Texas, and they raised tens of thousands of dollars a couple of years ago to help students in that state eliminate their lunch debt. There's the Philando Castile Foundation, which is in Minnesota. It's named after Philando Castile, the black man who was slain in a very controversial police shooting a few years ago. He was a cafeteria worker. And when he was alive,

he was known for paying off the lunch debt of the students that he served. And so that foundation continues his legacy after his tragic death. And there's organizations like the Food Research and Action Center. They try to work with legislators to have, you know, come up with solutions to these problems. It's nice to hear that, I guess, fellow students and community foundations are taking this up and trying to solve this issue. Is the government doing anything on a federal or state level? Right now, Congress is in the middle of reauthorizing the Childhood Nutrition Program. So this is a program that's supposed to be updated every five years or so. It hasn't been reauthorized, though, in about a decade. So 2010 was the last time Congress made any real changes to this.

So this year, we could see some changes that may eliminate these problems. For example, we could see some sort of retroactive debt policy. So right now, the way it works is that even if you were to enroll after three months of not knowing this program existed, but being eligible, you would still be on the hook for all of the lunch debt. The other thing, it's called the community eligibility provision, which some schools are already using to essentially provide free lunch to all students. So say if you're in a school district where two-thirds of the kids, we know they qualify for free and reduced lunch, the school district would be able to pay for all students, even the ones who maybe make a little more money and wouldn't qualify for this community eligibility provision.

And that helps to eliminate lunch debt as well. OK, so the federal government might do something soon until that happens. So until that happens, the USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a couple of years ago did issue a guidance telling schools that they need to be more proactive about communicating paperwork for free and reduced lunch so that we don't have families who should have been enrolled all along accruing debt and then having no way to pay for it. Philando Castile confronted student lunch debt every day working in a school cafeteria, but his mom, Val, had no idea any of this was happening until after her son died. She explains why she started a foundation to address it after the break. Hello? Hello, Desmond. Hi. Hey, it's Sean again. Remember me?

Yes, I do. How's it going? Good. Your mom, Liz, my colleague, told me that you're maybe working on a KiwiCo crate right now. It was a paper airplane launcher. Cool. A paper airplane launcher. Yes. Wow. What does this thing look like? How does it work? Well, it's a runway and it has two little circles that keep going around. They make it go fast into the air. Cool. The last time we spoke, I think we talked

about how you were going to camp that day, and I asked you to tell your friends that KiwiCo's offering today, Explain Listeners, the chance to try them for free and to redeem the offer and learn more about their projects for kids of all ages. You have to go visit KiwiCo.com slash explain. Did you let

anyone know about KiwiCo.com slash explained? Yeah, I let a few people know about it. Cool. Well, enjoy. At least. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Well, at least I think so.

Now you can talk. Thank you, Desmond. Well, good luck. Talk to you soon, buddy. Take care. Okay, bye. Bye-bye. My name is Valerie Castile.

And, you know, my close friends call me Val. My daddy called me Captain all my life. I think about that a lot because look what I'm doing right now. My son, he was the one and only Philando DeVal Castile. Well, it's been nearly three years since a St. Anthony police officer shot and killed Philando Castile. His family is carrying on his legacy with a donation that will wipe away the worries of countless students and their families. Philando found his calling working with children. He was a supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School when he was denied his right to live. Children at J.J. Hill Montessori School knew him as Mr. Phil, and his legacy of helping them get fed is living on in a new way.

Philando served children their breakfast and lunch. He was pretty much the first person that the children saw during the beginning of the day, because the breakfast is the beginning of the day before they actually went into their classrooms. He was the first person to greet them by helping them get off the bus in the morning. He came to school early enough where he could help the children with disabilities get off the bus and get back on the bus at the end of the day. He loved those kids. We'll just start off right there. He was devoted to his job throughout his career as a nutritionist or supervisor.

He received several perfect attendance certificates. Mind you, every year he's fighting tickets. You know, over the course of his driving career or whatnot, he had over 50 tickets. But he managed to get to work every day and serve those children their meals that they needed. Robbinsdale's Cooper High School just got a big check to pay off lunch debt for its students. Valerie Castile's foundation paid the debt in memory of her son Philando. The foundation was designed around the things that Philando held near and dear to his heart, and that was the children, family, and his community. The foundation helps families that loses a loved one to gun violence, and we also pay off the negative lunch balances for our struggling school districts here in Minnesota. You know, he wanted to make sure that those children had a nutritious meal every day. You know, when you bring your children to school, you're entrusting your children with the people, the staff at the school.

So he knew all of those children by name. He knew all of their allergies. And he had a relationship with them. And he can persuade the children to do things that their parents couldn't persuade them to do. You know, I mean, if they're having a bad day and they're not on their best behavior or whatever, he would come out of the cafeteria and talk to the child and explain, you know, hey, listen, you got to do what your mom and your dad asked you to do. These are your parents. And if they say you need to do this and do that, then that's what you need to do. And they go, okay, Mr. Field, okay.

District officials say when a student couldn't pay for their lunch, Philando Castile often actually paid for their lunches out of his own pocket. I don't have school-age children, so I knew absolutely nothing about what was going on in that environment. So obviously he saw that there was a problem in order for him to just take initiative and do something about it. A lot of us in the morning, we can't get going without our cup of coffee. to just take initiative and do something about it. A lot of us in the morning, we can't get going without our cup of coffee.

Now you think about a child that has slept all night and get up to go to school and be denied a meal. Or you have to wear a certain tag that separates you from the rest. Lunch shaming. I think it's ridiculous. I don't know what's going on up in them schools, but I think to deny a child a nutritious meal, I think that is awful within itself because we don't know how a family is living, if they can living in poverty, you're living in poverty. If you don't have the money, then you're going to make the child suffer? I think it's ridiculous.

And another thing, I think we as adults, we pay enough taxes. They should offer those meals and education for our children free across the board. I mean, we pay taxes for food, clothing, personal property taxes, tabs, gas. We taxed already before you get your paycheck. And I think it's awful that our children have to suffer because of an adult situation. Because our children have one job. That's to go to school, become educated, and lead this country. And they cannot be successful if they're hungry. A lot of officials started to think about things. Once we started paying off the lunch balances and then a lot of the horror stories started to surface,

then our legislators start paying attention. You know, I'm sad that I'm able to do that because of the murder of my son. It's been bittersweet, but it's very rewarding knowing that I helped a child be successful. And just to be able to help a child that's in need. I mean, kindness is contagious. And, you know, we're doing this lunchroom thing, paying off the debt. So then that encourages other people to help their communities as well. Thank you. Thanks again to KiwiCo for supporting the show today. KiwiCo is on a mission to empower kids not just to make a project but to make a difference. KiwiCo is offering today Explained listeners the chance to try them out for free. And to take them up on that offer, you can go to kiwico.com slash explain. That's K-I-W-I-C-O dot C-O-M slash explained.