It is normal and mandated, but unfortunately is also underfunded and often low quality/small portions (for perspective, after including costs of labor and maintenance, schools have roughly $1.50 to work with at scale for each meal).
For parents who can afford it and (crucially) have the time to prepare lunch for their children, they do so. Growing up, I always enjoyed making my own lunch or bringing leftovers from last night :)
That’s not the case for many, many people though. The amount of children who count on the school meal as their only reliable source of nutrition each day is staggering. The meal program was expanded during Covid, but afterwards some conservative areas walked it back substantially in an attempt to “save costs for taxpayers”. It’s counterintuitive as all hell though, as my parents (who are/were teachers) would put it, “You can’t teach a hungry child”.
It is normal and mandated, but unfortunately is also underfunded and often low quality/small portions (for perspective, after including costs of labor and maintenance, schools have roughly $1.50 to work with at scale for each meal).
For parents who can afford it and (crucially) have the time to prepare lunch for their children, they do so. Growing up, I always enjoyed making my own lunch or bringing leftovers from last night :)
That’s not the case for many, many people though. The amount of children who count on the school meal as their only reliable source of nutrition each day is staggering. The meal program was expanded during Covid, but afterwards some conservative areas walked it back substantially in an attempt to “save costs for taxpayers”. It’s counterintuitive as all hell though, as my parents (who are/were teachers) would put it, “You can’t teach a hungry child”.