State Sen. Danica A. Roem has introduced a new bill designed to strengthen protections for students with unpaid school meal debt and clarify funding responsibilities for resolving those debts, according to the Virginia State Senate.
The legislation, introduced as SB42 on Jan. 14, 2026, during the 2026 regular session, is officially titled: “School boards; payment of school meal debt.”
The analysis below summarizes information from the text of the bill, with additional interpretation provided for clearer understanding.
Fundamentally, this measure broadens local school boards’ duties to ensure school meal policies protect students with unresolved meal debt and that such debts are paid using nonfederal funds. The bill maintains prior bans on practices such as forcing students to discard meals, requiring chores, issuing wristbands or hand stamps, filing lawsuits, or excluding students from extracurricular activities due to unpaid meal balances. Newly, the bill stipulates that local school boards must pay—at each school year’s end—all uncollectable meal debt remaining in school nonprofit food service accounts with appropriated nonfederal funds, including donations, and prohibits school boards from shifting overdue balances to the responsibility of individual schools.
Sen. Danica A. Roem (Democrat-30th District) is the sole sponsor of this bill.
During the current session, Roem has filed 16 other bills.
Roem earned a BA from St. Bonaventure University in 2006.
Roem, a Democrat, won election to the Virginia State Senate in 2024, representing the 30th Senate district and succeeding former senator Adam Ebbin.
In Virginia, the legislative process starts when a bill is introduced in either chamber. The proposal is considered in committee(s) for discussion and amendments. Once through committee, the bill moves to the full chamber for floor debate and voting. Passage in both the House of Delegates and Senate sends the bill to the governor, who may sign, veto, or allow it to become law without signing. The General Assembly convenes every year in a regular session beginning the second Monday in January. Lawmakers put forward hundreds of measures, but only a portion are enacted.
| Patron(s) | Bill Number | Date Introduced | Short Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Danica A. Roem | SB42 | 01/14/2026 | School boards; payment of school meal debt. |
| Danica A. Roem and R. Creigh Deeds | SB4 | 01/14/2026 | School breakfasts; availability at no cost to students. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB41 | 01/14/2026 | Motor Vehicles, Department of; electronic transactions, voluntary contributions. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB43 | 01/14/2026 | Demand response programs; evaluation and assessment by Department of Energy, report. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB44 | 01/14/2026 | Cemeteries on private property; registration by localities. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB92 | 01/14/2026 | Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program; tuition and fee waivers. |
| Danica A. Roem and Michelle Lopes Maldonado | SB93 | 01/14/2026 | Data centers; taxes on banks that are tenants of a center. |
| Danica A. Roem and Adam P. Ebbin | SB94 | 01/14/2026 | Data centers; site assessment, sound profile of the high energy use facility. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB95 | 01/14/2026 | Rest area signage; adds human trafficking information. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB97 | 01/14/2026 | Hunger-Free Campus Grant Program; establishment of student meal plan credit donation program. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB331 | 01/14/2026 | Veterinary Medicine, Board of; traineeships. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB336 | 01/14/2026 | Tier 2 emergency generators; SCC shall evaluate impact of requiring data centers to limit use, etc. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB345 | 01/14/2026 | Guardianship/conservatorship of incapacitated adult; right to request counsel, right to a jury trial. |
| Danica A. Roem, Angelia Williams Graves, and David R. Suetterlein | SB350 | 01/14/2026 | Absentee voting; counting ballots prior to the close of polls. |
| Danica A. Roem and Kannan Srinivasan | SB482 | 01/14/2026 | Sodium Chloride; alternatives to use to treat and pretreat roadways for winter weather, report. |
| Danica A. Roem | SB503 | 01/14/2026 | Phase II Utility; rates, terms, and conditions of services, certain customers. |
| Danica A. Roem and Scott A. Surovell | SB716 | 01/14/2026 | Commissioner of Highways; certain agreements with U.S. Department of Transportation. |
Information in this article comes from the Virginia State Senate. You can access the source data here.
