AMHERST — The Amherst-Pelham Regional District last week became the latest district to approve a policy to step away from the practice of “lunch shaming” students who owe money on their school lunch accounts.
The policy comes amid a national conversation over humiliating practices often used in the collection of school lunch debt. Students around the country with outstanding lunch balances have been singled out in front of classmates, ordered to clean tables to pay the debt or had their hot meals thrown away in front of peers.
A 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that during the 2011-12 school year, almost 45 percent of districts provided students an alternative meal — often a cold sandwich — when they couldn’t pay.
The USDA is now requiring all school food authorities operating federal breakfast or lunch programs to have a policy on collecting overdue lunch payments by July 1, providing a look at how some of the Pioneer Valley’s schools deal with lunch debt and students whose balances dip into the red.
An old policy that the Amherst Regional School Committee approved in March 2015 called for students with negative account balances to be given a “designated meal alternate” — a “cheese sandwich with fruit and vegetable,” for example.
That part of the policy, however, was never put into place; its implementation was delayed as the School Committee discussed best practices, according to Director of Finance Sean Mangano.
“The previous policy had some punitive elements, such as limiting students with overdue balances to a meal alternate,” Mangano wrote in an email. “After getting feedback from parents, school committee members, and the school equity task force, we made some revisions.”
Under the new policy, approved June 13, the change is obvious: “All students will receive a regular lunch each and every day regardless of overdue balance.”
“People are delighted and so happy and so thankful that we have a more humane policy that takes into consideration family circumstances,” School Committee member Vira Douangmany Cage said, adding that many families had approached her with concerns about the previous policy, which was approved before she was on the School Committee. “This new policy is consistent with our commitment for equity and to do what’s right.”
The policy also lays out the steps the food service department is to take to collect outstanding debt, which Mangano said is around $50,000 across the Amherst, Pelham and regional districts, that includes Shutesbury and Leverett. In addition to monthly emails to parents with low or negative balances, notices will be mailed home three times a year. The district’s Family Center is tasked with acting, upon request, as a liaison between the food service department and families.
The new rules also give the superintendent or a designated official the discretion to reduce or waive a family’s debt based on individual circumstances. Parents and guardians must make arrangements before the school year’s end “to fully or partially pay, or waive, outstanding balances.”
Interim Amherst-Pelham Superintendent Michael Morris said another improvement in the new policy is that it entirely removes students from the communication loop when debt becomes an issue.