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Shame Sandwich? School Serves 'Cold Cheese' For Unpaid Lunches

EAST GREENWICH, R.I. (AP) — Some parents are criticizing a new policy at a Rhode Island school that gives cold cheese sandwiches to students who fall behind on lunch payments.

The program allows a child to receive three unpaid lunches, but they get the cheese sandwich on the fourth.

The sandwich comes with milk and an apple, and the school committee says it meets federal nutritional guidelines.

But some parents say it will also come with a social stigma.

Parent Lori Sullivan says serving a cheese sandwich is humiliating and unfair, and could be the result of something as innocent as a child forgetting to pass in money.

East Greenwich isn't the only school with this type of program. In Warwick, students who don't have lunch money get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

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