Washington (CNN) Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Tina Smith, both Democrats from Minnesota, introduced a bill on Wednesday that aims to combat school lunch debt shaming after a string of incidents that caused outrage this year.

"Across this country, students whose families are struggling to afford school meals are being singled out and humiliated at lunchtime," Omar said in a news conference Wednesday.

Today I am holding a press conference to introduce the No Shame at School Act. The bill will prohibit schools from shaming children that are unable to pay for their school lunch. https://t.co/ei1zCp0077 — Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 19, 2019

The bill comes at a time when public schools across the country are facing significant levels of lunch debt

"Everyone knows you can't learn or perform well when you are hungry. We need to support students in Minnesota and across the country by ensuring that kids are not humiliated because of an inability to pay for lunch," said Smith, a member of the Senate Education Committee, in a statement.

Omar said the bill would implement various steps to eliminate practices that highlight students' lunch debt or punish them for it, such as identification methods like tokens and wristbands, lists of children who have outstanding debt and the use of debt collectors to obtain meal fees.

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