He scanned the picnic table full of his friends in a school courtyard one day a few weeks ago, and said, %26#8220;I%26#8217;m not hungry.%26#8221; On another day, a group of classmates who also qualify for federally subsidized lunches sat on a bench. One ate a slice of pizza from the line where students pay for food; the rest went without. Lunchtime %26#8220;is the best time to impress your peers,%26#8221; said Lewis Geist, a senior at Balboa and its student body president. Being seen with a subsidized meal, he said, %26#8220;lowers your status.%26#8221; San Francisco school officials are looking at ways to encourage more poor students to accept government-financed meals, including the possibility of introducing cashless cafeterias where all students are offered the same food choices and use debit cards or punch in codes on a keypad so that all students check out at the cashier in the same manner.Only 37 percent of eligible high school students citywide take advantage of the subsidized meal program. But the stigma of accepting a government lunch, while others are paying for food from a different menu, is not unique to San Francisco. It is a problem many school districts across the country have been quietly confronting with mixed results, education and school nutrition officials said. %26#8220;We all struggle with it one way or another,%26#8221; said Eric Goldstein, chief executive of school support services for New York City%26#8217;s public schools, where 860,000 free or subsidized meals are served daily.The New York schools conduct regular promotions, including inviting players from the Mets, Giants and the Jets %26#151; and high school football players and girls%26#8217; softball players %26#151; to eat the subsidized fare in their jerseys.Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the public schools in Berkeley, Calif., said that attention to school cafeterias had traditionally focused on nutrition, but that the separation of students who pay and those who receive free meals was an important %26#8220;social justice issue.%26#8221;%26#8220;Fewer people know about it,%26#8221; said Ms. Cooper, whose lunch program offers the same food to students who pay and those who have subsidized meals. Many districts have a dual system like the one at Balboa: one line, in the cafeteria, for government-subsidized meals (also available to students who pay) and another line for mostly snacks and fast-food for students with cash, in another room, down the hall and around the corner. Most of the separation came into being in response to a federal requirement that food of minimal nutritional value not be sold in the same place as subsidized meals %26#151; which have to meet certain nutritional standards. But in part because of the fallout from having separate lines, some districts have eliminated %26#224; la carte foods, and many have gone the debit-card route.Mary Hill, president of the School Nutrition Association, a national group of school food providers, said students who receive free meals were %26#8220;very sensitive%26#8221; about being singled out.%26#8220;We want their participation so it%26#8217;s important for us to deal with the stigma,%26#8221; said Ms. Hill, who is also executive director of food services for the public schools in Jackson, Miss., where students who pay are required to buy the subsidized meal before they are allowed to buy %26#224; la carte items.Federal school lunch programs began during the Great Depression to assist desperate farmers. By 1946, the National School Lunch Act was passed %26#8220;to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation%26#8217;s children,%26#8221; a concern that arose after many Army recruits during World War II were found to be malnourished.Today, the United States Department of Agriculture spends $8.3 billion a year to provide free and reduced-priced lunches for 30.6 million children whose families are at or below 130 percent of the national poverty level, about $26,845 for a family of four. The program also provides reduced-priced meals for students who are between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level, or $38,203 for a family of four. Some schools use money raised from %26#224; la carte foods to support their subsidized lunch program, often adding choices to the federally financed menu. A Government Accountability Office report found that 90 percent of public schools in 2004 sold %26#224; la carte foods. While many have quit selling sodas and sweets, the separate lines remain. 1 2 Next Page %26#x00bb;
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