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That makes me sick

I can't even...they'd rather throw food away than let a hungry child, who had no control over the situation, eat. This makes me so angry.

Holy crap that is horrible!!

So "f"ed up.
My husband had no food growing up. The ONLY food he had was the free hot lunch (program). (He began working after school as a child to buy food.)

That is the saddest, meanest most uncompassionate thing I have ever heard of. I taught for one year in an iffy area and anyone else who has knows that you can't teach a hungry child much of anything, learning can only happen when basic human needs are met.

I feel like this story has more to it than what was written. Did the parents know that they didn't have funds, or were behind? Were they told that this could be a consequence?

I feel terrible for the children, though, they were not the ones that should have been made a public spectacle.

WTF?! How the hell does this even make sense?!

What the damn hell?

It is horribly sad but from the sounds of it these kids aren't those on the free lunch program, hence why the parents forgot to put money in the account.

Throwing away the food is a disgrace! Chalk up the loss but let the poor kid eat it and send a note home to the parent!

If this is an ongoing problem kids should have to present their meal card BEFORE getting their lunch!

That's is terrible.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/30/22504777-reports-lunches-seized-from-utah-schoolkids-because-of-unpaid-bills?lite

This article says they were given milk and an orange - not that I think its acceptable but at least they gave them something

@Anagram: I see your point but, no; I won't give the benefit of the doubt. They *gave* the kids lunch and *then* walked by, snatche it and threw it in the TRASH. Any social worker, educator or psychologist would know this is a detrimental action and can cause residual social effects. Yes- I see your point of the school trying to send a loud message to parents, but there are 100s of other ways to be loud without being hurtful to elementary aged children.

@MrsSCB: agree! I read a few different articles on the topic and apparently in Elementary school they are suppose to just keep the account with a negative balance until the parents pay up - once you hit middle school then they expect the student to be more proactive about his/her account.

@Anagram: I hear what you're saying, but it seem to me that throwing food out is the worst of all "solutions." Somebody still has to pay for it, even though it didn't get eaten -- so who? As a parent, I would pay what I owed but would NOT pay for food stolen from my kid's hands. This school is likely paying for the food it wasted anyway. Better to just give the kids sandwiches on all subsequent days until their parents pay up, no?

@PurplePeony
@CupQuakeWalk
@MrsSCB:

I think we all agree.I said THIS situation in particular is terrible and schools I've worked in have always given an alternate lunch (not thrown away food).

Then I said that if this is an ongoing problem (parents who don't qualify for free or reduced lunch not paying) then it has to be addressed because schoolslegally can't pay for school lunches with government money allocated for say, textbooks or staff salaries. But I definitely don't agree with throwing food away.

Whoever decided to give them food then take it and throw it away has decently poor critical thinking skills and a lack of empathy for kids so probably shouldn't be working with kids.

So horrendous. I can't imagine who would have thought we should take it away and then who allowed that to happen. Those parties should be fired.

It was the school's responsibility to notify the parents in a timely manner of low/no funds. It was parents' responsibility to pay for kids lunches. While yes, kids should be starting to take on responsibility, like remembering their homework, keeping themselves fed is not their responsibility and they should not be punished for others' faults.

My parents were well off but my mom was pretty forgetful. We didn't have accounts, you had to bring $1 every day. One year it went up to $1.10 and my mom hadn't read the info packet. The lunch lady started to get annoyed with me for being shirt and then I think realized it wasn't my fault and told me to bring it tomorrow. And gosh the number of times I had to count out 100 pennies or 20 nickels for the lunch ladies! But it wasn't exactly my responsibility to go to the bank and take out ones was it? I'm glad no one made me starve!

The school could have easily given parents more notice or had the students run a deficit to be paid back. What they did was unfathomable.

The school was in the wrong. Sounds like they only tried to notify parents and get this resolved for 1.5 days- Monday and Tuesday. That doesn't seem like a long time to then go to the extreme of withholding lunch. To remove lunch that has already been served just to throw it away and proved a point is plain stupid. Wednesday serve the kids milk and orange, but leave them alone on Tuesday.

That makes me so so ill! It's one thing to not be allowed to serve a regular lunch, but to take perfectly good ones and toss them?! Why?!?! Maybe my old schools were awesome, but they NEVER let a child go hungry. They went above and beyond to remind parents if their child was in the negative. They gave them applications for free and reduced lunch if they were having a hard time paying. And after parents kept dropping the ball after a certain period of time, children were given alternate lunches eg pb&j with a piece of fruit and milk. And you know what, there are ALWAYS leftovers in the cafeteria and because of food safety laws they can't be kept anyway, so why not feed it to the kids while the food is still in the window of safety instead of throwing it out?! In my mind, only a sick, disgusting person would rather watch a child go hungry out of mere principle.