Saturday, March 01, 2008

Free Lunch Isn’t Cool, So Some Students Go Hungry - New York Times


Free Lunch Isn’t Cool, So Some Students Go Hungry - New York Times: ... San Francisco school officials are looking at ways to encourage more poor students to accept government-financed meals, including the possibility of introducing cashless cafeterias where all students are offered the same food choices and use debit cards or punch in codes on a keypad so that all students check out at the cashier in the same manner.

Only 37 percent of eligible high school students citywide take advantage of the subsidized meal program. But the stigma of accepting a government lunch, while others are paying for food from a different menu, is not unique to San Francisco. It is a problem many school districts across the country have been quietly confronting with mixed results, education and school nutrition officials said.