A Utah school’s child nutrition manager threw out the lunches of about 40 elementary school students this week after the kids’ parents fell behind on payment.Some parents at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City say they didn’t even realize they were indebted to the school. The school apparently made calls Monday and Tuesday telling some parents that there was a balance on their accounts, and the children of those who had missed the call were the ones whose lunches got thrown out.According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the child nutrition manager’s original plan was to withhold lunches for kids whose parents hadn’t paid. But cafeteria workers were unable to distinguish who was on that list before serving. Once the food had been dished out, food safety codes say it can’t be given to another student and must be thrown away.The children were given milk and fruit instead of a full lunch — the meal that the school says it gives any child who isn’t able to pay.“So she took my lunch away and said, ‘Go get a milk,’ ” recalled one student, a fifth grader named Sophia. “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.’”
it is amazing how mean spirited people charged with children's well being and education for 6 rs. a day. they choose to obey a law that truly reprehensible and apathetic toward children. it's known that children can't function at their best when hungry so these people are failing in obligation across the board.
Parents were outraged by the move, calling it “traumatic and humiliating.”Salt Lake City’s school district has apologized to parents and students for the incident. “We again apologize and commit to working with parents in rectifying this situation and to ensuring students are never treated in this manner again,” the district said in a Facebook note.Still, the incident raises longstanding questions about child nutrition and low-income families. It is not the first time that students have had their lunch thrown out for insufficient funds. In November, a Texas middle school student’s lunch was thrown away because he was 30 cents short on payment.
this was clearly meant to embarrass the parents by using the kid as the instrument of the humiliation. regardless to what the law says it is un Christian to obey that law to throw food away instead of calling parent and awaring them of the delinquent bill, but i today's economy the parents could be out of work and that school lunch might have been all they get to eat a day.
note the picture was of White students, will that make no difference an apology seems to be short of remorse and covering butts with a orange and some milk those little tiny milk cartons but that should echo throughout the country and be addressed when republicans and right wing claim how much they care, and to notify them by facebook that too is an intent to humiliate, the servers are not the culprits the system that created that punishment for being late for lunch fees. it's egregiously inhuman to do that to kids starve and embarrass all in one fell swoop.
