Current Events
At least 40 students at the Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City were already sitting down and eating a hot, school lunch, when school authorities seized the meals and threw them into the trash simply because their parents were behind on payments.
According to Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City District spokesman, the child-nutrition department discovered that some parents had outstanding balances, but the department’s manager wasn’t able to notify the school until after lunch had been served a day later. So the department did the next best natural and humane thing: they snatched the meals from the children while they ate and threw them in the trash.
“It was pretty traumatic and humiliating,” said parent Erica Lukes. “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.”
Current Events
Olsen said school authorities attempted to contact parents about their debt but failed to reach them all before the following lunch period. He also failed to apologize for the inhumane action against the children, only saying “If students were humiliated and upset that’s very unfortunate and not what we wanted to happen.”
Naturally, public outcry bombarded the school and social media, prompting Olsen to issue a lengthy apology on the district’s Facebook page.
“This situation could have and should have been handled in a different manner. We apologize,” the post reads. “We understand the feelings of upset parents and students who say this was an embarrassing and humiliating situation.”
Is this really what the world has come to???
How rude!!!!! If the kids were already eating, what's so wrong with letting them finish then enforcing rules the next day? At least the school could have tried reaching the parents again by then. This is beyond insane!