poor enough to qualify for free or reduced price meals.
This is an abject failure of American society. Meals at schools need to be restructured as a cultural commonality that *BONDS* community in the same way (or better) than obligatory military service did in 1950. I admit the segregated military forces got a lot wrong, so the analogy has a lot of flaws. But part of "Americana" should become we all share lunch together at school irrespective of socioeconomic status. No classification of whoever kids, black kids, rich kids, poor kids, or anything. So, a rural far boy white kid, an urban inner city black kid, and an "indeterminate race" gated community lawyers kid all talk about their "American" lunch in their 30s.
This also allows addressing all the nutritional concerns that get brought up in the "school lunch" supplemental programs while removing the stigma of supplementation for socioeconomic reasons. I'm not so naive to believe that the gated community lawyer's kid's lunches won't be different than the inner city ghetto lunches. But everybody gets lunch. Period.
