Posted on 01/31/2014 9:31:51 AM PST by NormsRevenge
School officials in the US state of Utah have apologised after an employee confiscated and discarded the lunches of about 30 children whose parents were said to be in arrears on meal payments.
Outraged parents in Salt Lake City said the students at Uintah Elementary primary school had been humiliated.
The school system has launched an inquiry into the Tuesday incident, blamed on a sole "nutrition manager".
The children whose meals were put in the rubbish were given fruit and milk.
"This was a mistake. This was handled wrong,'' Jason Olsen, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City school system said on Thursday.
According to Salt Lake City school officials, on Monday a nutrition manager arrived at Uintah Elementary to investigate what it described as a high number of negative balances on the accounts students use to pay for lunches prepared and served by the school.
The nutrition manager and another school employee began calling parents with negative balances in an effort to recoup payment, the school system said.
Then, on Tuesday, students who had queued up and were served lunch only to arrive at the tills and show negative balances were told to give back the lunches.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Government Giveth, and the Government Taketh Away.
There is a story behind that statement ... :)
"...and that's the way it was.....AND WE LIKED IT!"
lol.... yep... that’s me
I know a retired teacher who is of the opinion that sending a child to government school is a form of child abuse.
LOL, me too. (Well at least the ‘grumpy’ part)
When I went to school it was $10.00 for a month or bring your own. I was given a weekly card that had M T W T F with the school district, name of school stuff like that. When you went through the line your card was hole-punched for that day at the register or you could pay .50 for lunch. Easy and efficient with much better menus. We even had a snack line where you could purchase twinkies, suzi-q’s stuff like that if you wanted. Lunches now are just a nightmare compared to then. You could also qualify for the free lunch program based on parents income.
This school screwed up here and punished the children. Sad.
I guess I’m missing something. Why should schools be required to give free lunches to kids whose parents can afford to pay but who do not?
It’s not exactly the kids property if the school provided it unpaid.
The debate here is whether the school should take back lunches mistakenly given out for the children of chronic nonpayers, should let them keep the lunches despite the mistake, or should feed the kids regardless of parents making payments.
Great comment. Agree 100%.
Nutrition Manager is the politically correct term for “head cook”
Schools love those terms.
You call secretaries Staff Assistant to the “whatever boss”
A “Nutrition Manager” would have had a complete fit dealing with my friends and I in high school. Our school lunch was a simple individually priced menu. No credit, cash only. The quality was usually so bad that nine days out of ten my friends and I would just fill our trays with small potato chip bags, packages of cookies, and two pints of chocolate milk. There, that was what we wanted and had for lunch. I can imagine what the “nutrition manager” would have thought of us (grin).
The shameless stupidity that is society today continues to march “forward.”
Shameless parents don’t pay their kids’ lunch bills, and for some strange reason.... The kids don’t have lunch?
Oh, the humanity!!!!
These kids should have been denied lunch if the idiot parents aren’t paying the bills. Let the kids go home hungry, and let the parents feel some shame so they pay their bills on time.
If the school computer made a technical error, then I can see how it is their fault. But it seems as though the responsible parents paid for their kids’ lunches, so this crap about “I didn’t know how to pay my bills” stuff doesn’t fly.
This crap about “Oh, the awful school leaders” is just that....
Crap!
Yeah, I remember those days. There were 6 of us kids and at .30 per lunch that would have used up 25% of mom's weekly food budget. She had one of those hand cranked meat grinders and she would get creative. Leftover roast became roast salad sandwiches. Ham would become ham salad and I even recall the occasional hot dog salad sandwiches.
My first grade granddaughter had this done to her over 10 cents!! they took the tray right off the table after she had begun eating. I wanted to go to that school and look the person in they eye who did that to see if they were even human!! But, I was not in charge, but my son did have something to say about it, just not what I would have said.
Oh, the poor kid might be embarrassed, have their self esteem hurt, stuff happens.
My adult daughter has a good friend who is “nutrition mgr” at an elementary school in a pretty decent suburb. Says it’s a continuing problem getting some parents to ante up.
To me a better solution would be holding the report card or grade promotion pending a settlement of the accounts.
“Start by finding out who stole the private property of the student”
—
What private property?
.
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