Kids' Lunches Taken for Overdue Bills: Utah Elementary School Apologizes for 'Humiliating' Treatment (VIDEO)
Kids' lunch bill at a Utah elementary school caused workers to take away their food and throw it in the trash Tuesday. Parents were outraged when they discovered that some of their children's food was taken and replaced with just fruit and milk because their accounts were not balanced, but the school has apologized for the act.
The kids' lunch bills at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah were evaluated by the district's child nutrition department, who discovered that many children had not paid for lunches. A child-nutrition manager visited the school and told workers to throw away the lunches because they could not be served to other children— by the time the order was received, though, 40 children were already eating.
"It was pretty traumatic and humilitating," Erica Lukes, whose 11-year-old daughter had her lunch taken away, told The Salt Lake Tribune. "I think it's despicable. These are young children that shouldn't be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Jason Olsen, a district spokesman, said parents were informed Monday via phone calls that their children's outstanding lunch balances had to be paid. The calls continued Tuesday, but by then many lunches had already been thrown in the garbage.
Parents, who received reports of cafeteria workers crying and upset, their children being embarrassed and having their lunch taken, were still "surprised by the news," the district said in a statement. Olsen admitted that the communication had broken down between parents, the school and the child-nutrition department.
"Something's not working, and that's what the school and child-nutrition department are going to work on together," he explained. "This can be easily prevented. We need to make sure proper notification goes out to parents and they have time to put money in the accounts."
"If students were humiliated and upset, that's very unfortunate and not what we wanted to happen," Olsen added.
The Salt Lake City School District posted an official apology for the incident on Facebook Tuesday and promised the tactic would not be used at any other schools to rectify overdue balances.
"This situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize," they stated. "The district has specific guidelines for school kitchen managers on how parents should be notified, and we are currently investigating to see if these guidelines were followed correctly. … We again apologize and commit to working with parents in rectifying this situation and to ensuring students are never treated in this manner again."
