I send my kid with lunch; some days he packs it himself. He is at a Title 1 school and there is a free lunch option, but he prefers to bring it from home.

Anonymous wrote:My kids stopped buying lunch at school because they did don't have enough time to eat lunch if they have to stand in a line to buy food.

So, I pack lunch with a hot component (spaghetti, meatballs, lamb biryani, nuggets, shepherd pie, chilli, chowder, soups, rissoto ) and other things that they can eat if they are crunched for time - string-cheese, yogurt, cut up sandwiches, quesadilla, idli, dumplings, spinach pancakes, mini uttapam, fruit crepes, chicken fritters.

How do you keep things hot?! I bought what I thought was a decent thermos and insulated container, but my kid complains things get gross by lunchtime.

They both pack their own lunch every day. If they want to leave school and buy lunch they have to use their own allowance or other money. They are both part of friend groups that stay on campus. I think my junior has spent money at lunch one time in his entire HS journey. My daughter never did.

At the end of the day this question is really heavily influenced by whether their friend group goes out for lunch.

That said, we did make it clear to both our kids we would not be exceptionally lenient on accepting tardies for the class after lunch period. I think they also see it is hard to leave campus and get lunch and get back in time and it isn’t worth the stress.