NJ school district bans indebted students from prom and field trips, refuses offer to pay off lunch debt

America has a food insecurity problem, and poor, hungry kids who can't pay their school cafeteria lunch debt are performatively ridiculed and humiliated by their schools. Despite this shaming, these kids parents refuse to stop being poor, and so schools are turning to desperate measures to provide the right incentives to these parents (meanwhile, kids from wealthy families are being offered front-of-the-line privileges in exchange for their parents' "donations").

In Cherry Hill, NJ -- a suburb of Philadelphia -- students who can't pay their lunchroom debts will be barred from attending prom or going on field trips or other after-school activities.

A Philadelphia businessman offered to pay off the entire student body's debt ($16,446), but the Cherry Hill district refused his offer, declaring it to be pointless since the debt would just re-occur.

One in five Cherry Hill students is poor enough to qualify for a lunch subsidy.

Its unclear how many Cherry Hill parents with outstanding fees at the end of the 2018-19 school year were eligible for reduced meals. Officials have cited a $14,343 meal debt incurred by about 343 students.

There have been offers to help erase the outstanding debt. But the district has said it would not accept donations because of the likelihood that the debt would then recur.

Ravitz, who lived in Cherry Hill for more than 40 years, said he had hoped to work with one or two donors to put this issue to sleep. His fourth-generation family business operates two ShopRite stores in Cherry Hill.