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Last year in Texas, as his friends stood and watched, a 12-year old boy had his school breakfast taken from him and thrown in the trash. It wasn’t the class bully acting out, it was a school cafeteria worker supposedly following policy. Why? The child’s meals card, which can be refilled by parents, was 30 cents short.
This week, it happened again, only it wasn’t a 12-year old boy in Texas, it was 40 elementary school kids in Utah who had their school lunches taken out of their hands and thrown in the trash in front of them. The reason? Insufficient funds on their meals cards.
The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed one parent, who said she had not been notified that her child’s meals card was overdrawn. The school claims to have notified all the parents and saw a growing problem with non-payment, so they took action — by literally taking food away from hungry children, in front of their friends.
Apparently, no teacher or administrator stepped in to stop the madness, although one teacher may have paid for some of the lunches from her own pocket.
“It was pretty traumatic and humiliating,” said Erica Lukes, whose 11-year-old daughter had her cafeteria lunch taken from her as she stood in line Tuesday at Uintah Elementary School,” the Salt Lake Tribune reports. “Lukes said as far as she knew, she was all paid up. ‘I think it’s despicable,’ she said. ‘These are young children that shouldn’t be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up.'”
KSL reports “Sophia Isom, Lukes’ daughter, was met by a district nutrition manager who was monitoring accounts.”
“So she took my lunch away and said, ‘Go get a milk,’ †Sophia said. “I came back and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ Then she handed me an orange. She said, ‘You don’t have any money in your account so you can’t get lunch.’ â€
She said the food was being thrown out. Sophia said the same thing happened to many students, and it was the talk of the lunch period.
Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City District spokesman, said the district’s child-nutrition department became aware that Uintah had a large number of students who owed money for lunches.
As a result, the child-nutrition manager visited the school and decided to withhold lunches to deal with the issue, he said.
The school district released a statement saying the “situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize.”
The statement, posted to Facebook, has almost 6000 comments, most of them negative.
http://www.ksl.com/api/jwplayer/player.php?file=http://media.ksl.com/1391061237-1944851917.mp4&image=http://media.ksl.com/1391061237-1944851917.jpg&width=500&height=330
Image: Screenshot via KSL
Hat tip: The Raw Story