Absurd prices in the lunch room are not a better way to make money. Students go hungry and they struggle to learn. School lunch isn’t about making money, it’s about making sure students eat and get through the day.
School lunches are all paid at the register but if students don’t have cash or funds in their account, they can no longer go into debt. There is no way for people to get food if they don’t carry money with them that day. Trying to get something from the vending machine isn’t an option either as nothing is filling to get. The vending machines either don’t work or have settings where it’s only cash or only card.
Viking Meals are a great way to get free or reduced lunch and help students out a lot, but only some students are eligible for it. Pizza, pasta, and panini’s are the only options for free lunch. Free lunch is a great thing to offer students who need it and it helps a lot but not when it’s only three options every single day.
If a student is eligible for free or reduced lunch they should have the option to eat more than a panini or pizza. There should be more variety for them because no one wants to eat the same thing every single day they come to school. Soup or pasta should be included in the free and reduced lunch.
As someone who pays for school lunches every day, Eddie Cho feels like he spends a lot of money on a simple school lunch.
“I feel like I pay too much for lunch. It’s really simple things like a small cup of soup or a panini and it stills around $5,” Cho said. “Usually if I didn’t have cash on me or in my account they would let me go to the negatives but now they don’t allow that, so I have to make sure that I always have money on me or else I won’t eat the whole day.”
Not eating the whole day isn’t how someone goes throughout their day. If students don’t have the money to pay for their lunch they have to go the whole day without eating, affecting their learning ability. No one can learn on an empty stomach, all you can think about is food and how hungry you are.
Having to pay $5 or more for a meal at a high school is absurd. The prices should be lowered and students should be allowed to make their accounts negative if they don’t carry money on them. Accounts going into negatives are so much better than students going hungry all day.
