Kinley Reed Mr. Ariciu 8th Grade ELA 25 March 2024 Free Lunches for All Students “If education is free at the point of use, why aren’t school lunches?” states Sonali Kolhatkar from L.A. Progressive article Many schools make students pay for their lunches. Schools already have great concerns, among them students’ health, academic success, and attendance. They just added another reason for students to skip school, kids should want to be in school instead of out on the streets doing substandard things, like drugs, gangs, and fighting. School lunches should be free because kids already worry about not having money for food at home, struggling parents would feel less financially overwhelmed, and students’ emotional and social well-being would dramatically improve. Childhood hunger can …show more content…
It’s one thing to make the teachers pay because they have a job that they can pay for, but students don’t have a job where they get a paycheck to pay for their food. Students 6th through 12th graders in debt will no longer be fed at school. Kids are not being fed because they don’t have the money to pay for it. Students would rather get a job so they can pay for food, instead, they are forced to attend a school where they are not fed because they are poor. When parents enrolled their kids at school, they thought they were enrolling them in a safe environment where they can learn and make friends, but now that they have to pay for school lunches, they have to worry about getting bullied and having their lunch money taken away. Some kids are scared to go to school because it is not safe anymore. School districts need to make an impact on children and make them want to learn, now they are making them scared. “If all your friends are packing their lunch, you’re not going to go into the cafeteria and get your free meal,” Jennifer Bove, director of food and nutrition services for the East Hampton district,