YORKSHIRE, England – Parents allege a primary school in Yorkshire, England is charging them about $1.43 a day to eat their home-packed lunch in the cafeteria.

And a secondary school in south east England is reportedly charging more than $2.50 to eat their own lunch at school, parents told the country’s teachers union.

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The union, NASUWT, conducted a recent survey of parents that revealed many are being charged by public schools for allowing children to eat their home-made lunches at school, though most charge between about 9 and 50 cents per day, the Telegraph reports.

“Now just sitting in a dining hall and unwrapping your sandwiches is considered to be an optional extra, it’s disgraceful,” union deputy general secretary Patrick Roach told the news site. “Parents should be appalled in just the same way that we’re appalled.”

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said “schools are justifying it by saying, ‘you’re having to be supervised to eat your lunch and therefore if you’re not having a school meal, you’ve got to contribute towards that supervision because you’ll be in the dining room, sitting there.”

Of course, the teachers union blames the situation on a lack of funding for public schools.

“What the government doesn’t face up to is, the minute you free up the system then this is what people do, and if you’re squeezing them also on school funding they’re going to look at where they can do it,” Keates told the Telegraph.

“And now the government’s actually changing the funding system and it’s widely anticipated that there’s going to be thousands of schools losing a lot of money,” she continued. “Unless the government sets out clearly what schools can and cannot charge for, then we’re going to get more of this.”

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TES.com points out that “The charge for packed lunches comes as children in reception to year 2 continue to benefit from the controversial universal free school meals policy introduced under the coalition government.”

Union officials highlighted the situation at a conference in Birmingham this week, as well as an alleged trend in schools charging parents for “integral or essential parts of the curriculum” like special field trips or educational supplies.

National union official Gareth Young told TES the new charges on parents is “disturbing” because it prevents lower income students from pursuing certain subjects.

“One of the concerns that parents have expressed is, they’ve said there should be stronger regulation by the government over how much schools are allowed to charge for services they provide for pupils,” he said.

Officials with the country’s Department of Education said the charges schools are imposing for packed lunches are “absolutely unacceptable,” and vowed to address the issue.

“If schools are looking to exploit loopholes to get money out of parents we will investigate and make sure those loopholes are closed,” a spokesman told TES.