AlainLocke
Banned
Students Say NJ School Held Lunch-Shaming Roll Call
Students at the public Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey say names of seniors were called out in an assembly and presented with a choice on Wednesday morning: Pay for your school lunches or don’t get a diploma.
“Exactly like a roll call,” Fair Lawn senior Benny Koval told The Daily Beast. “And for (overdue library) books, the students called had to actually walk over to the stage and pick something up.”
A picture taken by Koval on Wednesday morning from within the assembly, which was otherwise about graduation prep, quickly went viral on Twitter, where users contended the call-out amounted to a particularly public form of lunch shaming. Some commenters even offered to give the school cash to pay off lunch debts.
“My high school's having a name & shame for students who owe lunch and/or book money,” Koval’s tweet read. “Admins say they won't graduate unless debts are covered.”
Lunch shaming, or formal and public pronouncements pointing out students who received school lunch but couldn’t pay for it, has received increased scrutiny in news outlets and social media since an Alabama school stamped the words “I need lunch money” onto the arm of an 8-year-old boy last year. When a Phoenix area school did the same to a second grader in April, a BuzzFeed article outlining the case went viral.
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez signed first-of-its-kind legislation in March that banned the practice in the state.
“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,” the bill’s sponsor, Michael Padilla, told NPR.
Students at the public Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey say names of seniors were called out in an assembly and presented with a choice on Wednesday morning: Pay for your school lunches or don’t get a diploma.
“Exactly like a roll call,” Fair Lawn senior Benny Koval told The Daily Beast. “And for (overdue library) books, the students called had to actually walk over to the stage and pick something up.”
A picture taken by Koval on Wednesday morning from within the assembly, which was otherwise about graduation prep, quickly went viral on Twitter, where users contended the call-out amounted to a particularly public form of lunch shaming. Some commenters even offered to give the school cash to pay off lunch debts.
“My high school's having a name & shame for students who owe lunch and/or book money,” Koval’s tweet read. “Admins say they won't graduate unless debts are covered.”
Lunch shaming, or formal and public pronouncements pointing out students who received school lunch but couldn’t pay for it, has received increased scrutiny in news outlets and social media since an Alabama school stamped the words “I need lunch money” onto the arm of an 8-year-old boy last year. When a Phoenix area school did the same to a second grader in April, a BuzzFeed article outlining the case went viral.
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez signed first-of-its-kind legislation in March that banned the practice in the state.
“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,” the bill’s sponsor, Michael Padilla, told NPR.
Last edited:
The fukkery from my family had they done that to me as a kid
school lunch was nasty too at times...