State Sen. Kenny Yuko introduces bill to help end ‘lunch shaming’

In the announcement of his “Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights Act,” State Sen, Kenny Yuko, DRichmond Heights, shared links to examples of “lunch shaming,” the practice of treating students differently if their families owe money for school lunches

One example in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, involved a tray of pizza, cucumber slices, an apple and chocolate milk that was thrown in the trash when the cashier discovered the student had an unpaid bill from the previous year.

In another, a secondgrade student in Phoenix, Arizona, got “lunch money” stamped onto his arm.

Nationally, the Department of Agriculture found that nearly 50 percent of school districts have some form of lunch shaming.

Inspired by a recently passed law in New Mexico, Yuko has introduced a bill that would “direct Ohio schools to work with parents or guardians to help them pay off debts and end all ‘lunch shaming’ practices.”

“It is disgraceful that some children endure public humiliation due to their inability to pay for school lunches,” Yuko said in a statement. “Watching the lunch shaming crisis on national media is unsettling to me not just as a father but as a grandfather, a legislator, and a concerned citizen.”

According to the New York Times, New Mexico’s law is the first such legislation, also dubbed the “Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights.” The bill outlaws shaming children whose parents are behind on school lunch payments.

In an interview with NPR, the New Mexico bill’s sponsor, Sen. Michael Padilla, said he mopped floors in the cafeteria as a child to earn his school lunch. He said he grew up in multiple foster homes.

“A 6-year-old maybe up to about an 11- or a 12– year-old, a 14-year-old, they have no power to fix this issue and to resolve this,” Padilla said in the NPR interview. “If their parents have debt in the lunchroom, then that is not something that they have control over, and I don’t know why we’re punishing them. So this prohibits that — it outlaws that — and it focuses more on the child’s well-being rather than the debt itself.” Yuko concurs. “These students did not choose their circumstances,” Yuko said. “They should never face public embarrassment for having been born into poverty.”

Yuko’s bill would apply to “all public schools, charter and STEM schools, and private schools participating in the national school lunch or breakfast program.”

According to Yuko’s office, the bill will:

• Direct schools to reach out to families of students who have meal debt, instead of burdening and stigmatizing the student.

• Require each district or school to provide meal applications to all parents and guardians, unless the school already provides all

“These students did not choose their circumstances. They should never face public embarrassment for having been born into poverty.”

— State Sen. Kenny Yuko

students a free lunch.

• Require schools or districts to submit an application for a free or reduced price lunch for any eligible student who has not applied.

• Help schools monitor nutrition for homeless students and ensure that all homeless children receive free school meals.

The bill would also ban the public identification or stigmatization of a “student who cannot pay for a meal or who owes a meal debt by, for example, requiring that a student wear a wristband or hand stamp.”

Districts and schools would also not be allowed to require a student who cannot pay for a meal or who owes money to do chores or other work to pay for meals.

Schools would also not be allowed to require a parent or guardian to pay fees or costs from collection agencies hired to collect meal debt.

Yuko