The confidentiality of students should be of the utmost importance to a food provider. At school, the type of food that they receive can be a clear indicator of how a child's family is able to make ends meet at home.

In some school districts that Sodexo manages, the company used payment systems that gave different meals to students whose accounts are overdrawn, as at the Elk River, MN and Scappoose, OR, School Districts.

The confidentiality issue is a particular concern in those states where additional school funding is tied to the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced meals. If students feel singled out, not only will those most in need of nutritious school meals miss out, they'll also be less likely to apply for the program in coming years, thereby affecting both the solvency of the food service program and some of their district's other sources of funding.

Scappoose School District, OR

At the Scappoose School District (OR), under Sodexo's guidance, the school board developed a policy that prohibited students with outstanding balances on their food accounts from receiving a regular lunch.

When an elementary student's food account reaches a negative balance of $10, the cost of roughly four lunches, the child was given a cheese sandwich and milk as an alternative.

This was only one of many complaints raised by food service workers shortly after Sodexo took over management of the account.

Elk River, MN

In Elk River, MN, elementary students are given a different meal than other students if they are more than $10 overdrawn on their lunch account, a practice that could embarrass students whose peers notice they are eating a different meal than others as a result of the policy.

After three of these different meals, the students' parents are contacted. Middle and high school students, however, will not be given the $10 leeway before they're served different meals, and will be given no more than five of these different meals, with parents contacted after the third. The new policy was necessary because of Sodexo's new PayPams system, which tracks students' accounts by dollars rather than days, partly because of the addition of a la carte and breakfast offerings.

Saddleback, CA

In Sodexo's proposal to Saddleback (CA), they asked that they be absolved of responsibility of maintaining the anonymity of students receiving free or reduced lunches.