Sandwiches of Shame? Schools Crack Down on Parents Who Don't Pay Lunch Bills

April 16, 2009 — -- Facing a budget crunch, a large school district in Albuquerque, N.M., is using a controversial method to collect money -- call it the "cheese sandwich policy."

The district, which has 89,000 students, racked up big debts because many parents in the district stopped paying for their kids' hot school lunches. School officials decided to crack down on parents with unpaid tabs by cutting off kids from the hot lunch line and giving them an alternative lunch -- a cheese sandwich, a fruit or vegetable and milk.

The school board said the policy has been effective in getting delinquent parents to pay, but many parents are outraged, saying it stigmatizes their kids.

Katrina Tapia, a 7-year-old Albuquerque public school student, encountered the new policy in January, saying she was pulled out of the cafeteria line by the lunch lady and given a cheese sandwich.

The first-grader said she was embarrassed and didn't tell her friends why she was pulled out of line.

"Because I thought they would, like, you know, laugh at me," Tapia said. "'Cause they get their lunch and I don't."

Katrina's mother, Elenita Chee, is angered by what happened to her daughter.

"It makes me upset to know that they treated my little girl like that. And if anything, they should have gone after me instead of my kid," she said.

Brad Winter, CEO of the Albuquerque Public School System, said the program has been remarkably successful and has cut the district's school lunch debt from $140,000 to $85,000.

Winter said the school is not trying to punish or separate one group of kids from another.

"I think that we do a very good job of not creating a stigma because of the sensitivity that everyone is trained for," Winter told "GMA." "And what we were trying to do is find how do we pay this debt out. Because we cannot carry this debt."

Albuquerque is not the only school system taking action. Similar policies are in place in Hillsborough County, Fla., and Lynnwood, Wash.