Posted on 01/30/2014 5:29:36 AM PST by Wolfie
Parents upset after school takes lunches from students with account deficits
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Dozens of students at a Salt Lake City elementary school were served lunch Tuesday, only to have the food taken from them and thrown away in an incident parents said was uncalled for and humiliating for the children.
The incident took place at Uintah Elementary School when students were told there was no money in their school lunch accounts.
The students’ lunches were taken and thrown away, and the students were provided with fruit and milk. Officials said it’s school policy for food in such situations to be put in the trash.
Parent Erica Lukes said taking away her child’s lunch was “ridiculous.”
“I don’t think any child should have to feel like that over a two-dollar lunch balance,” she said. Jason Olsen is the communication director for the Salt Lake City School District, and he said in a statement officials with the school and district started calling parents with negative or zero balances on school lunch accounts beginning Monday and continuing Tuesday. He said students without money in their account were told Tuesday they would only be getting fruit and milk.
Because the children are given their lunch before they go to the computer to process payment, those without positive account balances had their lunches taken away from them.
The statement from Olsen reads in part: “This situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize.
We are also investigating what type of notification parents may or may not have received prior to this week. The schools says they inform students when they go through the lunch line if they have a low balance. They say they also send notes home in the student’s Monday folders. However, when contacted Monday or Tuesday, many parents were surprised by the news. The district has specific guidelines for school kitchen managers on how parents should be notified, and we are currently investigating to see if these guidelines were followed correctly.
We understand the feelings of upset parents and students who say this was an embarrassing and humiliating situation. We again apologize and commit to working with parents in rectifying this situation and to ensuring students are never treated in this manner again.”
I agree. The government worker who handed the lunch to the child should be charged with theft of government property and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Outrageous! Whatever happened to a note to the parents?
Must... have... free... LUNCHES!!!
I do think there was a way to notify the child in advance that they would not be getting the full lunch that day, maybe a note in homeroom?
This must be their new class being held in the cafeteria—
Economics 101
Chapter One: There is no free lunch, Alice.
Golly! Ya think?
Are we supposed to believe this is the first time ever that students have been given their lunches when they did not have money in the account? No, it's just the first time it made the tv news, recently. People with two functioning brain cells would have figured out a way to avoid this situation a long time ago.
Oliver Twist: Please sir, I want some more.
Mr. Bumble: What?
Oliver Twist: Please sir, I want some...
Oliver Twist: more.
Mr. Bumble: More?!?!?!?
Yeah, but some of those online payment systems are flawed. When I made a payment, I would have to take a screenshot of it on my iPhone. Then when someone in the cafeteria told me that the balance was getting low, I’d whip out my phone and show her that the payment was made. Sometimes, it wouldn’t show on her screen.
These people should be embarrassed, by only by their own behavior.
When my twin daughters started school, I explained to them that, by the time they were school age, they had eaten approximately five thousand meals since they were born. Therefore, it was their responsibility to remember they had to eat that day, and that THEY were responsible for keeping track of their lunch accounts or making sure they had a lunch.
......and if they couldn't remember something so simplistic as eating, they deserved to go hungry.
One school system always had PB&J for those without. A child with irresponsible parents should be able to eat.
Do those parents have beer and soft drinks in the refrigerator? Do those moms who can’t be bothered to pay for the school lunch program go to the beauty shop? It’s not the taxpayers duty to feed anyone’s children but their own.
Our child’s school does this type of account. Normally you set a minimum balance and if it falls below that they will send you a note home or an email to tell you it’s low. Sometimes they will tell my son and he will tell me. I think once we have “run out” of money in the account, but they gave him lunch anyway and we sent in a check the next day.
It is convenient because you can check balance online and make payments online. I can see what my child has bought on the account and set up limits on what he can/can’t have-ice cream, slushy cups, water, etc.. (I can just imagine him “buying a round” of slushy cups for all his buddies if I didn’t keep up with it)
You can’t charge them until you know what they’re getting!
Child abuse.
Wait till they grow up and find their ObamaCare accounts mishandled by bureaucrats. They undoubtedly will fall completely apart and have to be toted off to a psych ward for a couple days to recover.
Then they'll be on the Geraldo Jr. show on the next Sunday night.
This school screw-up is actually child abuse.....there should be a congressional hearing post haste. Shocking, I tell you, shocking.
Leni
But I thought it was all about making sure kids aren’t hungry. Surely they aren’t FOS on this too? Naaa...can’t be.
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