A Republican seeking to change a Democrat's anti-lunch shaming legislation has passed an amendment allowing schools to prohibit high school students with jobs from participating in activities or graduating unless they first pay off their lunch debt.

The amendment, filed by Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, was in response to HB 1589, legislation introduced for the third year by Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville.

Clemmons' legislation, called the "Tennessee Anti-Lunch Shaming Act," seeks to do several things to ensure that students unable to pay for lunch aren't embarrassed or used as leverage to collect the debt:

States that the school cannot "publicly identify or stigmatize a student" who has accumulated a lunch debt, nor can it keep the child from participating in school activities or graduating due to lunch debt;

Requires that schools direct all communication about the student's lunch debt to parents, not the child, and offer the parent assistance with filling out a free or reduced lunch application if the child had accumulated debt for five or more meals;

Requires that schools provide a U.S. Department of Agriculture reimbursable meal to any student who requests one, and prevents the school from forcing a child to throw away a meal after it has been served if they're unable to pay for it.

"No child should ever be afraid to go to school or to lunch in the cafeteria and be afraid of being publicly humiliated because they can't afford their lunch or have a meal debt," Clemmons said.

He reiterated that his legislation — for which the state Department of Education has previously helped him craft language — does not prohibit schools from collecting lunch debt from parents, but rather seeks to protect children from being shamed in the lunch line or during other school functions due to owing cafeteria money.

The bill's budget impact has been deemed to be not significant, according to a fiscal memo for the legislation.

"This allows us to check the boxes on everything we preach up here that we want to do and allows us to do it at no cost," Clemmons said, citing legislators' desire to protect kids from adverse childhood experiences.

Chairman files amendment to change bill

Ragan and two other Republicans on the committee, Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver of Lancaster and Rep. Scott Cepicky of Culleoka, insisted that families need to be held accountable for paying for their children's meals.

"When are we going to start teaching personal responsibility of the parents?" Cepicky said. "Without any teeth in this, there's no incentive for these parents to pay their bill."

He said that at his children's school, report cards are withheld if lunch debt isn't paid.

Ragan's amendment does several things:

Allows schools to deny students who don't qualify for free or reduced lunch the opportunity to participate in school events and activities, to graduate, or to receive a diploma if they don't use their own work money to pay off the lunch debt. The provision applies to students who have jobs with an income "that exceeds the amount of the accumulated meal debt;"

Requires schools to tell parents and guardians they may be reported to the Department of Children's Services for investigation of child abuse or neglect related to the accumulation of meal debt; and

Removes the word "stigmatize" from the line saying schools shall not "publicly identify or stigmatize a student who cannot pay for a meal."

The amendment passed.

"Someone has to be accountable for this," Weaver said. "By not having accountability, we continue to teach our children not to have responsibility.

"As the scriptures say, we're always going to have poor. We're always going to have people in need."

Despite expressing concern that the name of Clemmons' bills could be perceived as offensive to teachers, Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis and chair of the full House education committee, said before Ragan's amendment was filed that he supported Clemmons' bill.

Clemmons said he considered the amendment to be hostile.

"I take issue with referring parents or guardians to DCS because they're poor," he said. "I don’t think that is appropriate grounds to refer something to DCS."

The bill will move on to the full education committee next week. Clemmons said he would work to come up with "compromise language" and would not allow the legislation to become law as it is currently amended.

Some GOP members say they aren't convinced lunch shaming is happening

Multiple committee members said they were unaware of any schools in their districts that engaged in any kind of lunch shaming practices.

Clemmons said that he had received emails from Tennessee residents describing instances in which they experienced or witnessed the practice. He said he didn't want students to be bullied for having to eat an alternative meal in the school office or for wearing wristbands home with their lunch debt amount written on them.

"Obviously we're going to have bullying," Weaver said. "We're going to have that. We had it when I was in school.

"Some of that stuff you're not going to be able to change."

In 2017, the director of the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System announced the district would be making changes to its policy after a parent spoke out about the district sending students with lunch debt to the principal's office to eat an "alternative snack" alone.

Clemmons said after the committee that a legislative staffer was among the people who contacted him about their experience with lunch debt shaming.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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