Elementary school takes lunches away from students owing account balances

[swimswamswum]

By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo News 9 hours ago

 

Maybe Ebenezer Scrooge wasn't such a bad guy after all.

 

A group of up to 40 students at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City had their lunches taken away and then thrown in the trash due to outstanding balances on their accounts, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune.

 

Erica Lukes, a parent of one of the students, told the newspaper, "It's despicable. These are young children that shouldn't be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up."

 

Lukes' daughter, fifth-grader Sophia Isom, told KSL-TV that a district employee took her lunch away and said, "Go get a milk." Sophia recalled, "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€

 

So, what happened? The Salt Lake City district posted an apology and an explanation on Facebook.

 

A "child nutrition manager" had been sent to the school on Monday to investigate the "large number of students who had zero or negative balances in their school lunch accounts." Officials said they then began calling parents.

 

From Facebook:

On Tuesday, the calls to parents continued. When lunch time came, students who still had negative balances were told they could not have a full meal but were given a piece of fruit and a milk for lunch. The district does this so children who don’t have money for lunch can at least have some food and not go without.

Unfortunately, children are served lunch before they get to the computer for payment. The children who didn’t have enough money in their accounts had their normal food trays taken from them and were given the fruit and milk.

 

This situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize.

 

The post on Facebook also goes on to acknowledge that the incident was "an embarrassing and humiliating situation."

 

The district, according to KSL-TV, contends it did try to warn parents about the outstanding balances. However, Lukes said she was not notified.

 

"Even if they did try to send the word out, you still don't do that to a child," she told KSL-TV. "You don't take a lunch out of their hands."

 

UPDATE: The Salt Lake Tribune reports that two Utah lawmakers, Sens. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, and Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, held a news conference at the school on Thursday.

 

Weiler called the school's actions "bullying" and "an abuse of power," adding, "This person came into a school and used her power to humiliate and embarrass children and I think we ought to draw a line and say that’s not acceptable behavior."

 

The school district issued another apology, at the news conference. Spokesman Jason Olsen said, "This was a mistake. This was handled wrong." And he added that food shouldn't have been taken from the students "once they went through that line."

 

Source: Yahoo!

 

 

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1093&bih=446&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=unimpressed+gif&oq=unimpressed+gif&gs_l=img.3..0j0i5l3j0i24.69335.69698.1.69927.3.3.0.0.0.0.85.212.3.3.0....0...1c.1.32.img..14.3.299.tvn-JYQ92Jk#imgdii=_

Is someone fucking with me right now?

And it's awful when you don't have money to pay. I remember not having money and having to literally beg to get my lunch.

 

Also "once they went through that line" ...........................................................

 

 

Edit:

Excerpts from a different article:

 

Lukes said taking the $2 meals from about 30 students was "humiliating and demoralizing."

 

"People are upset, obviously, by the way this has been handled because it's really needless and quite mean," she said. "Regardless if it's $2, $5, you don't go about rectifying a situation with a balance by having a child go through that."

-

The school is located in a middle-class neighborhood, and the district qualifies for federal reimbursement on lunches when students select certain offerings that are within nutritional guidelines.

-

Her daughter reported children were upset and confused and some shared food with each other.

[Athena]

In my school you can charge three times if you don't have money.

[gus]

I remember in elementary school we paid before getting lunch.

If we didn't have enough money, we still got sandwiches, milk/juice, fruit, or a yogurt combo pack.

 

getting lunch and then finding out you can't eat it is humiliating and just ridiculous.

[mgl]

A group of up to 40 students at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City had their lunches taken away and then thrown in the trash due to outstanding balances on their accounts,

 

Wtf? So they rather throw food into the trash, than to feed kids? What kind of fucked up logic is that?

There are much better ways to resolve such issues.

[albino_squirrel]

That's awful 

There are teachers who provide sandwiches and snacks for the kids who don't have money for lunch at my school. They just let the kids come in during their lunch period to prepare the sandwiches themselves.

[timpa]

Honestly I don't have too much of a problem with kids not being able to buy lunch if they don't have the money for it. I wasn't able to buy lunch unless my Mom gave me money so usually I brought a lunch. The two main problems I have are #1) Since it has to be put into an account beforehand there is NO WAY a kid should show up to school for lunch and *THEN* find out they can't afford it. The parents should have been notified (and verified) before hand.

 

Secondly... There is no reason why good food should have been thrown out in the garbage just because the kid couldn't pay for it. That is a huge waste and ridiculously stupid and done just to make fun of the child after the fact.

[Someone actually]

Why the fuck did they throw it away when nobody fucking ate it yet?

[bihn]

Throwing the food away crossed so many lines, as if the humiliation wasn't enough, they need to end it with the if you can't pay for it, then it is better to throw it away. Couldn't they just let the kids eat and pay it later? wtf

[Regina]

The world we live in. 

[˹AS˼]

How stupid. So rather then let he kid eat the food, they throw it in the garbage? I mean, what kind of decision is that? Might as well let the kid have the lunch.

[abel]

I watch a lot of Food Channel but completely overlook the Child Hunger commercials they put up because I don't think it's really that severe of a problem.

This is pretty enlightening though to see that families really don't even have the money to pay for the school's lunch service for their kids. Fucked up disparity of wealth we have here.

 

 

If this was just because they forgot to pay, oh well. The wealth disparity is still an issue. But they're stupid for just throwing the food away... what good does that solve?

[CANCAN]

This is ridiculous, who's the guy who said to throw it away...?

[gayness]

Those people just wasted a bunch of food. wtf.

[ANCORA IMPARO]

That's fucking ridiculous. The kids already had the food, what's the point in throwing it away? 

[starryknight]

Honestly I don't have too much of a problem with kids not being able to buy lunch if they don't have the money for it. I wasn't able to buy lunch unless my Mom gave me money so usually I brought a lunch. The two main problems I have are #1) Since it has to be put into an account beforehand there is NO WAY a kid should show up to school for lunch and *THEN* find out they can't afford it. The parents should have been notified (and verified) before hand.

 

Secondly... There is no reason why good food should have been thrown out in the garbage just because the kid couldn't pay for it. That is a huge waste and ridiculously stupid and done just to make fun of the child after the fact.

Pretty much this. Since the kids already had it they should have let them eat it. Not only were young children humiliated but good food was waste too (and thinking about it now whatever money the school spent to get the food in the first place...logic...oh wait most school districts bureaucratic don't run on that anymore following policies to the letter is much better cuz you don't have to think & still get paid!)

[Guest Kami_removed]

When i was younger i forgot money sometimes and its sad how schools would actually not give a young child food for lunch

[초췌]

if this were an issue about not giving lunch to people who couldn't afford them, i would sympathize, but if it's because they forgot, then i don't see what's wrong with what they did

they had to throw it away because it's unsanitary to put it back and serve it to someone else

[Namtae]

That's insane

[midnightdreams]

why throw away the food? Just charge them and keep a list of kids who can't go into the lunch line after they've hit their quota of debt

[daebakplushies]

this is sad...please IF YOU HATE KIDS GO WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE...i remember my lunch lady...her english was pretty basic but she took care of us. my lunch lady used to give us more meat or an extra piece of bread (especially if you were tall) or call us when lunch was almost over and ask us if we wanted the leftovers!! bless her soul.

[HappyS]

This is just ridiculous.

[PinkBaby]

The only problem here is the food being thrown away. Everything else makes sense and I have no probelm with. The kids can still eat without having money which is good. They should know whether or not they have money in their accounts beforehand. This can be easily achieved by staff telling each kid when they're running out of money. Or they can change it so the kids pay first.

[�SHERRY�]

There are many very poor ppl in this world who can't even eat a decent meal everyday but these ppl are just throwing out food just because they can. So fuck up -_-

[BabYYzelo]

fucked up logic. throwing food to the rubbish? such a waste. if i was that kid, i would just punch the hell out of her. throwing food itself is wrong, but showing that kid that throwing the food is better than them eating without paying is so.....

[plur]

It's just humiliating for the kids to have their lunches taken away after they have already gotten it.

at my school, if you didn't have money, you just couldn't get anything extra and they gave you a bag lunch with an apple an a sandwich at least. They would also let you know if you were low or negative in your account.

 

If anything, even if the parents forgot, the school should notify the parents when to pay again or something.

 

This was definitely not handled well.