General Discussion

Have been going on since students had to start paying for lunch unless they could prove their poverty (thanks Reagan!).
Luckily, some states now provide universal free lunch and breakfast, because who cares if a middle class kid gets maybe $2.00 total worth of food free - a small salad and reheated serving of frozen teriyaki chicken nuggets on rice, and a bag of carrot sticks with a juice box or milk carton?
In cities, and in rural areas, where teachers or school administrators care, and kids have to pay for hot lunch, this happens. Or a local business steps in while the owner's kids are going to that school, and pays up school lunch balances as a charitable tax break.
However, the story is probably AI slop, designed to push a myth of a "Real American" - now an older Boomer who does their work out of love, not profit....because a lunch lady or a teacher are not going to have "The occasional $20 or $50 or $100" to put money on one or two hungry kids lunch account at one school.
The Real American is there to be exploited, the "Mommy and Daddy" that is expected to share their resources without complaint while everyone else does the important, active stuff.
Stories like this without addressing the devaluation of the idea of education or child rearing pushes the trope that Education, like Parenting, is supposed to be considered "a labor of love", that Teachers - and school Nurses, Administration, down to Bus Drivers, Lunch Ladies and Janitors don't really depend on the job, they live on the "feels" - like that babysitter you only need to pay $20 an hour to watch the kids over the weekend when you want to have dinner with a client.