All students will get a hot lunch in the Stewartville School District even if they can't pay for it, after the school board voted Monday to overturn a policy that denied students a hot meal if their lunch accounts were overdue.
A media report earlier this month that a student who couldn't pay had food taken off a lunch tray and thrown in the trash by a cafeteria employee brought widespread condemnation. Advocacy groups held a State Capitol news conference, and a state lawmaker said the district shouldn't be in the business of shaming students over their parents' debts.
School Board Chairman Rob Mathias said the new policy will allow students to accrue a negative balance, unlike the former policy in which students were given a cold sandwich rather than a hot meal if they owed money.
The district will work with families that don't pay their lunch bills, Mathias said, and may send the accounts to collectors if they reach a balance of negative $75 or more.
Mathias said he's still not sure that a cafeteria worker ever threw a student's lunch into the trash — the story was told secondhand to a local television station and never confirmed directly with school officials, he said. A review of what happened at the school is underway, Mathias added.
The Stewartville school district said some 680 families owed about $11,000 on overdue lunch accounts. It costs about $450 a year to provide each student with hot lunch, according to the district's website.
Mathias said a GoFundMe fundraiser and a donation from a local business will cover the district's costs for now. The district may have to reassess its budget to cover the costs of lunch going forward, he said.
"I believe that most if not all school districts are always pinching pennies to try to educate children because the state of Minnesota does not provide the adequate funding that is needed," he said.
