A Rhode Island school district that has faced an uproar over its policy to serve cold sandwiches to students with unpaid cafeteria bills will vote next week on a proposal to reverse it, the superintendent said on Thursday.

Warwick Public Schools unveiled a new policy on Sunday under which students with unpaid lunchroom bills could have only one choice for their meal: a sunflower butter and jelly sandwich. The policy drew the ire of parents and community groups — as well as hundreds of social media users — who said it amounted to “lunch shaming” children for the economic travails of their parents.

“There has to be a better option than to take this out on the kids,” one person wrote on the district’s Facebook page. “What if this is their only meal of the day? What if they get nothing else at home?”

The school district appears to have gotten the message.

Karen Bachus, the chairwoman of the Warwick School Committee, said in a statement posted online Wednesday night that its policy subcommittee had recommended the lunchroom debt decision be reversed.

“Please understand that no students are left without a meal under our current policy,” Ms. Bachus said in the statement. Students are provided “a balanced lunch” that includes vegetables, fruit and milk, she said.

“However,” she continued, “after careful review and consideration the policy subcommittee is recommending that the Warwick School Committee allow the students their choice of lunch regardless of their account status. With this policy we seek to find a balance between being fiscally responsible and ensuring that all our students are provided with a healthy, nutritious lunch.”

Philip Thornton, the superintendent, said in an email on Thursday that the full committee would vote on the reversal on Tuesday. The committee did not respond to messages seeking comment on Thursday.

The policy — and the specter of children glumly eating a cold sandwich while their more well-heeled peers dined on pizza and fries — provoked both a backlash and an outpouring of support for the indebted students.

An estimated $14,000 in payments toward lunchroom debt were collected on Monday and Tuesday, Ms. Bachus said. She did not specify how much of that came from donors and how much came from the families of indebted students.

And on Thursday, the yogurt company Chobani donated $47,650 to pay “the debt for the low-income students in the district,” John Kell, a spokesman, said.

But most of the cafeteria debt was not accrued by low-income students, the school committee said.

Warwick Public Schools participates in the federally funded National School Lunch Program, which provides eligible children a lunch that is either discounted or free.

Children qualify for the program if their families receive food stamps or have an income below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, the 2019 federal poverty line is an annual income of $25,750.

Ms. Bachus said 34 percent of the students in the district were enrolled in the National School Lunch Program. But just 28 percent of the lunchroom debt is held by those students, she said. The rest is held by students who do not qualify for free or discounted meals.

The total lunchroom debt load as of the end of last week, when the policy was announced, was $77,000 spread among 1,653 students, Ms. Bachus said. She did not know on Wednesday how the $14,000 in payments had affected the district’s bottom line.

“This is a moving target since today more debt was incurred,” she wrote.

Christine Hauser contributed reporting.

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