Actually, the cheese sandwich is also accompanied by a trip to the salad bar with lettuce, beans, fruit, and dressing. As for the shame and humiliation, in three years at my school, I’ve yet to witness one incident of embarassment or shame and I’ve spent many an afternoon at the lunch tables. The anecdotal cases are quite isolated, I’m sure.

I’ve heard the “don’t punish the children for the sins of the parents” argument before. In practice, this would translate into, “allow us to raise our children in a world free of consequences.”

After graduation, not paying bills leads to the loss of electricity, heat, and water. Families can be evicted, cars can be repossessed, and credit card rates can be raised. I should think that, given such consequences for adults, a parent might welcome a cheese sandwich or two to teach a child the importance of keeping up with financial obligations.

The school isn’t making it shameful. Yes, the school has to make the food itself undesirable because otherwise there’s not incentive to pay, but the shame, if there really is any, comes from knowing that your parents let the money run out, and the school isn’t responsible for that.

Remember that the cheese sandwich isn’t a sudden “gotcha” move by the cafeteria. Even 7.50 represents multiple days of telling the kids he or she is out of money (and I got the impression that the schools sent home account statements too.)

Hey, it’s for our own good. We should pay our bill all the time, and on time. And if we are late, shame our children! That will teach us a lesson. Bill paying is a high priority, and if people don’t understand that, we should punish their children!

This is nuts!

Also, please don’t ask me what the solution should be. Just because I recognize this solution as a bad one, doesn’t mean I know how to collect bills from defaulting payers effectively. I don’t know what the solution is, but shaming the kids is not a good one. And the argument that they are being shamed by their peers for one reason or another anyway, doesn’t mean we should pile on more shame.

Defaulting $7.50? I mean, come on! And what if there is an accounting mistake? The child was shamed for no reason! And of course, we all know that school administrators don’t make accounting mistakes, right?

I work in the infamous Chula Vista School District and the amount of coverage this cheese sandwich has received is definitely a sign that the apocalypse is upon us. You’d think folks would rather talk about our huge population of English Learners (We’re 5 miles from the Mexican border) who need to develop English proficiency or face a stigma a little more significant than a cheesy “scarlet letter” for lunch. A lot of time, energy, and attention is being wasted on a trivial topic.

And then they are griping because their kid isn’t given the super-delux lunch. And that the “cheese sandwich” leads to their kid being ridiculed.

Well – in addition to the message of “stop being stupid” I’d like to send to these parents, I have another message:

Any failure to conform to whatever the “trend of the week” is in an American junior high school is grounds for the failure-to-conform kid to be teased, ridiculed, ostracized, etc. It’s part of the law of the jungle that has reigned in these schools for over 20 years. Wearing the “wrong” brand of jeans can bring it on. Being a little too clumsy can bring it on. Needing glasses can bring it on. Having a speech impairment can bring it on. Even being “too smart” can bring it on.

So it’s not like your kids are being singled out for extra-special-horrific treatment. In fact, I dare say, they’re probably dishing out their fair share of meanness to kids below them on the pecking order.

Either pay for the danged lunches, or shut up.

Now, I think it’s normal for parents to forget about lunch money every once in a while. Eating a cheese sandwich shouldn’t be a life long badge of shame. It is no big deal to for a kid to realize that if you don’t pay attention and run out of money that people aren’t going to keep giving you stuff for free just because you want it. In fact, it seems a much more appropriate life lesson than “appropriate touching” for schools to teach.