What If We Just Feed Them?

My View

When it comes to collecting on overdue school lunch bills, lawmakers and news media are focusing on the wrong problem. The simple solution: Feed the kids!

Laws now are being prepared that forbid public schools from humiliating students with unpaid lunch bills. Bill payment is an adult problem that creates suffering for kids. Students are in the care of their school between seven and 11 hours a day when you include time on a bus and after-school activities. We are at the point when meals ought to be as integral to public schooling as textbooks and computers.

This is not a new concept. The 1,000-student district I lead in Menahga, Minn., where 47 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, looked at the real numbers. Our total paid meal revenue amounted to less than 1 percent of our total budget, and we were chasing debts, managing lunch accounts and trying to figure out how to feed children we knew should qualify but had filed no paperwork.