If everyone is legally entitled to a free lunch, schools would be obligated to produce enough meals for every eligible student, whether they eat it or not. This would possibly over double the cost of the school lunch program, increase food waste, and do nothing to help poor families. Forgive me if I would rather see those billions either not spent at all (there's an idea...) or directed towards programs that actually serve the public, instead of another case of politicians spending money just for a headline and not even helping people in the process.
I'm pretty sure that in 1st period or homeroom students choose whether they are having lunch that day and you get a ticket or whatnot and then they lunch ladies know what how many to cook for.
My school went for the tried and true approach of not cooking enough food and then making everyone wait in line for 20 minutes (our lunch periods were only 25!) while the food had to be cooked
