Thoughts? Elem. School Taking Away Regular Lunches From Students Who Owe Money, Replacing With Tuna [View all]
I wanted to get some input from my DU friends on this issue because it is happening in my school district. Recently, the district has implemented a policy to deal with students who have delinquent accounts (in some cases, some kids accounts are $-300, $-400, $-500, which is causing the school to be "in the hole" around $-10,000 total. The school has now started taking away regular lunches from some students who owe money once they are checking out, replacing their meal with a tuna sandwich.
To say that some of the parents are in an uproar is an understatement, calling the policy "bullying" and "humiliation", and they even got the local NBC affiliate involved to do a story. The district's response is that they have reached out to some of the parents whose children owe a substantial amount of money, and this policy was necessary.
There are free and reduced lunch programs available to children whose families are not financially stable, but in some cases, parents are just not filling out the paperwork for their children to receive a free or reduced lunch. Also, this policy is not necessarily affecting only low income children, because programs are available for them.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you know of any schools who have similar policies?
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