Lunches seized(and then thrown away into the trash) from kids in debt at Salt Lake City elementary
41 replies, posted
[url]http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57468293-78/lunches-olsen-lunch-district.html.csp[/url]
[QUOTE]Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts — a move that shocked and angered parents.
"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, 1571 E. 1300 South.
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."
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.
But cafeteria workers weren’t able to see which children owed money until they had already received lunches, Olsen explained.
The workers then took those lunches from the students and threw them away, he said, because once food is served to one student it can’t be served to another.
Children whose lunches were taken were given milk and fruit instead.
Olsen said school officials told the district that their staffers typically tell students about any balances as they go through the lunch line and send home notifications to parents each week.
The district attempted to contact parents with balances via phone Monday and Tuesday, Olsen said, but weren’t able to reach them all before the child-nutrition manager decided to take away the students’ lunches.
"Something’s not working, and that’s what the school and child-nutrition department are going to work on together," Olsen said of the notifications.
He said there’s no plan to use the same tactic at other district schools.
"This can be easily prevented," Olsen said. "We need to make sure proper notification goes out to the parents and they have time to put money in the accounts."
But Olsen said he would not describe the tactic as a mistake.
"If students were humiliated and upset," Olsen said, "that’s very unfortunate and not what we wanted to happen."
However, after further investigation, Olsen released an updated statement that was also posted to the district’s Facebook page. It said: "This situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize."
The post adds: "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."
Olsen said it’s standard in the district to give kids fruit and milk in lieu of lunch if they don’t have the money to pay for lunch.
He said it’s unclear how Uintah had been handling such situations before this week. Attempts to reach Uintah’s principal were unsuccessful.
Olsen said the district encourages parents to use its electronic system to pay for lunches and set up email notifications. He said the software for the system is new this year, though it’s not much different than the old one.
Lukes said she never received a notification that her daughter would have her lunch taken.
She said it was a difficult day for her daughter and other kids. She said her daughter told her one of the cafeteria workers cried at the sight. And her daughter’s best friend was so upset that she went home Tuesday night and made lunches for all the students who had theirs taken, she said.
"You would think in a public school system your child wouldn’t be turned away from lunch," Lukes said, "especially when people usually settle their balances.[/QUOTE]
what an asshole
Here, we're not going to let you eat and--just to be a dick--we'll waste the food, too.
Because throwing the meals away instead of feeding them to the kids costs less!
I bet Romney had something to do with this...
[QUOTE=Sojourner;43724184]Because throwing the meals away instead of feeding them to the kids costs less![/QUOTE]
In terms of liability, its not good to feed the meals to other kids due to the risk of disease spreading, etc.
However it is idiotic that the workers can't see the kids' balances before giving them food, even then the debate over reduced/free lunches is brought into play.
Either way its still an asshole thing to do, I never dismissed that.
[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;43724222]In terms of liability, its not good to feed the meals to other kids due to the risk of disease spreading, etc.
However it is idiotic that the workers can't see the kids' balances before giving them food, even then the debate over reduced/free lunches is brought into play.[/QUOTE]
they could have you know, not taken away the food then. :v:
[QUOTE=darunner;43724191]I bet Romney had something to do with this...[/QUOTE]
2 years l8 m8
Okay, look at yourself, see your two options: let the kid in debt eat the lunch, or throw it away. If you choose the latter, something is seriously wrong with you. You're wasting resources, just because.
Poor kids.
They didn't fucking do anything wrong. What a prick.
Dude honestly I just don't understand why you would throw them away
Like is that REALLY a reasonable alternative than giving people food now? Just throwing it away? WHAT?
[QUOTE]Children whose lunches were taken were given milk and fruit instead.[/QUOTE]
So instead of just letting the children eat the meal that they had already been served, they threw that meal away and gave them [I]another[/I] one instead? You have to be some kind of moron to think that was a great idea when you're trying to stop losing money.
My school district assigned you a pin number, you entered it and a profile came up- complete with a list of allergies, your account balance, and a picture of you. It's not hard to make a decent system, but even beyond that nobody should be denied a meal at school. They should budget for the minimum, and make people pay for the extra stuff like cookies.
[QUOTE=Wiggles;43724458]So instead of just letting the children eat the meal that they had already been served, they threw that meal away and gave them [I]another[/I] one instead? You have to be some kind of moron to think that was a great idea when you're trying to stop losing money.[/QUOTE]
You're implying that schools are good with money.
I don't understand why they had to throw away the lunch. I mean, whether it's eaten or thrown out at the time they still won't have the money as they claim so you might as well not waste the food and let the child have the lunch anyway.
Their lapse in logic just baffles me. Sounds like you Americans have morons running your schools.
I hope those assholes in the faculty get sued massively.
[QUOTE=chunkymonkey;43724599]I don't understand why they had to throw away the lunch. I mean, whether it's eaten or thrown out at the time they still won't have the money as they claim so you might as well not waste the food and let the child have the lunch anyway.
Their lapse in logic just baffles me. Sounds like you Americans have morons running your schools.[/QUOTE]
You've got to teach these kids early that you don't fuck with the man, otherwise he fucks with you.
Because throwing away the kids meals makes everything better and is gonna totally help right?
If a lawsuit arises from this, I hope the nutrition manager is held responsible and not the school's coffers.
Sometimes I wish I was supreme overlord Judge Jury and Executioner of the US just for situations like this.
I'd have everyone involved with this held in a cell starving, and have them brought delicious meals of enormous proportions, only to have them thrown out, pissed and shit on by a group of laxitive-fed stallions before their very eyes.
Every. Day.
...then the firing squad for these communist anarchist liberal terrorists of course
[QUOTE=Cockslap;43724494]My school district assigned you a pin number, you entered it and a profile came up- complete with a list of allergies, your account balance, and a picture of you. It's not hard to make a decent system, but even beyond that nobody should be denied a meal at school. They should budget for the minimum, and make people pay for the extra stuff like cookies.[/QUOTE]
at my school. 1 sandwich = £3.40. Across the road at the sandwich shop you can get a sandwich what is bigger and has more stuff for £1.40.
This is just silly. They couldn't just give them that one more lunch and take down all the names of the kids with outstanding balances? I remember for my school if you had an outstanding balance, a bill was mailed to your house for your parents. The way this was handled is just silly.
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;43724229]they could have you know, not taken away the food then. :v:[/QUOTE]
I was never dismissing that, its an asshole thing to do.
Most of my youth I lived on school lunches we as students had little keyring tags that would get checked at the serving window and confirm we had our lunch paid and also were used to let us choose which meal out of the selection of 2 or 3 we want to get it served the next day (so the kitchen always cooked more or less as much as was going to be needed of each meal). You chipped through the machine and didn't have the lunch paid, they usually let you write down your name on a list and have the meal anyway, if you promised to get it sorted out the next day or so.
Here in Missouri, our schools are not known for being very good, or at least very well managed. They still handle shit like this better in schools here, they let the kid eat, if he genuinely cannot afford it, he gets free lunch. If he can afford it, then he pays, but if he builds up a debt big enough, they just stop you from ordering lunch and give you a peanut butter sandwich. The person who allowed this to happen needs to be sacked and someone that gives a fuck about their students should be in charge.
This isn't as bad as it sounds. Yeah it's bad that the children were punished because of parental fuckups, but each week the parents are given notifications, and I bet they went the whole year without giving a shit. Secondly, the children were still given Milk and fruit for lunch anyway, it isn't like they went hungry. It's still pretty pathetic though. It isn't high school, where young adults share responsibilities with their parents, it's god damn elementary school
My high school allowed you to charge a single lunch if you couldn't pay that day, but you couldn't charge again until it was paid, so bring your own lunch/use vending machines, or go hungry. They also had waivers for poorer families to sign on registration at the start of the year and they didn't have to pay for lunch at all, ever
[quote]I don't understand why they had to throw away the lunch. I mean, whether it's eaten or thrown out at the time they still won't have the money as they claim so you might as well not waste the food and let the child have the lunch anyway.
Their lapse in logic just baffles me. Sounds like you Americans have morons running your schools.[/quote]
Because once food is served, it can't be served to another student. It would be harmless, but you'd be hard pressed to find any place that takes food they served to a customer who didn't want it, to then serve to another
[QUOTE]
"If students were humiliated and upset," Olsen said, "that’s very unfortunate and not what we wanted to happen."
[/QUOTE]
you can just feel the sincerity radiating from him
At first I thought this was a mass protest of lunch where kids were just throwing it away, and I was angry.
I re-read the title more carefully and now I'm angrier.
I assume most of you in the US went through the public school system and know that there has been little information on what ones lunch account balance is unless you ask. Now thats changed in the last couple of years because schools now allow electronic balance management. It would be nice to just send out an email to the parents saying something like "KID NAME's Lunch Account Balance is $2" so they know to add more to it
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.