The school doesn't have a legal obligation to feed a kid. They have no responsibility or obligation to make sure a kid gets lunch. Not in my state anyway.

if children are enrolled in the national school lunch program they MUST be offered lunch

I dont know if this mothers child was enrolled or not, but depending upon the size of the school, it also seems an unreasonable burden to expect lunch staff to be notified to look out for one student from which lunch is to be withheld.

it's school procedure to give a child lunch if a parent wants to teach a lesson it is to be done at home

Not here..my kid went 3 days without lunch because he used up his ticket sharing his lunch punches with a friend of his who never had lunch money. When he ran out he asked to charge and was told no..
they didn't do the charge program anymore. They didn't care that he ran out, or that the other boy never had lunch money. I ended up buying the other kid's lunches most of the year. Don't know what his situation was, never knew his parents.

What is the national school lunch program?

in Texas they give the kids a number thats nice of you to buy another kid's lunch

Well, was kinda sad his parents didn't give him $$ to eat lunch ...I was just making the point that they aren't obligated to feed the kids. I'm thinking you and msharmony are referring to the free lunches or something... they never feed my boys unless they had prepaid lunch tickets. They were good for 30 days and would get punched each day..

Its a federally funded program that ensures children in participating schools get fed. It was started in response to studies showing that children have harder time in school when they are not eating breakfast or lunch. When I was in school, they offered lunch. When my son was in grade school, they also offered breakfast.

At my old school, the parents had to fill out paperwork to get on that program. It wasn't an automatic thing, even if the kids were hungry.

at my son's school, the parent's had to qualify for the program.

whether legally bound or not....I would have given the child lunch. Kids can be difficult to teach sometimes anyway, but a full belly helps IMO.

I would think if a child isn't receiving lunch on a regular bases the school would contact the parent to discuss the situation and resolve it

Yeah, the program actually provides for ALL the meals at the school(with reimbursement to the school). To receive the free or reduced price meals though, paperwork is required from the parents to prove income.

Around here, not everyone ended up with it due to the conspiracy theorists thinking the gov.t was collecting info on them. So we still had hungry kids, and teens.

You would think and hope so...when I called the school and asked why they wouldn't let my boy charge his lunches when his punches were used up, I was told they stopped the "charge" program because they weren't getting payed by enough of the parents after the fact. So in this case the school was not concerned if the kids were eating or not...it came down to $$$$$, not the kids!

And obviously the parents were thinking about the $$$$ instead of their own kids, or else they'd have paid on the charges when it was necessary.

Yeah, it's too bad the charge program was dissolved over a the ones who didn't pay.
..still ashame the kids go without. I didn't get federally funded lunches for my kids. I bought theirs and when my kid ran out he shouldn't have had to go without. Seems to insure your kids eats ya need to get on the program. The point I'm attempting to make here is that no..the school is not obligated or responsible for making sure the kids eat. It is the parents job!

That was their reasoning to do this. I don't know what is legal or not in this from the school or the mom, but it sounds to me like they made a judgement call.

right. in schools which participate, even students who are 'paying' are participating in the program. The schools is paid for each meal they serve, and they must offer the meals to each child although some will have to pay.

most of the schools where i've worked have extra frozen slices of pizza in the freezer (leftovers from 'pizza days') and healthy snacks laying around for those who forgot a lunch.

however, we aren't a catering service/restaurant. if the kid forgets his lunch, he can make a call home to have one provided.

if my own kids forgot their lunch, they don't eat. they are old enough that they need to be responsible for themselves and learn about consequences of certain actions. i've seen high school mothers bring their childrens' lunches to school. while that won't be me, neither would i phone the school and tell them not to feed my kid.

there are some schools here that get extra funding for programs like healthy breakfasts (in inner city schools) but i can't rationalize tax payers money going to pay for lunches for kids who forgot them. that, in my opinion, isn't the point of education tax.

If you have your child enrolled in this program then it sounds like yes, they will get their lunches. If no then they don't. My son waited for 3 days to tell me he was out of punches on his card, he was afraid I would get mad at him... I wasn't thrilled but at the same time I couldn't get mad at him for wanting to help his friend.
As disturbing as it may be, the schools really don't concern themselves with which kids are getting lunches, it should matter but it really doesn't. It isn't all that un heard of for this to happen. The parents need to get their kids the lunch cards or get them in the programs. This incident with my boy was 6th grade. As far as the op, the child was 4th grade. Sounds like a sympathetic teacher wanted to help...