Find your diamond
Find your jewelry
shape
carat
color
clarity

School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunches

Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

I'm not sure I would have handled the situation the same way. I would have been tempted to pry into his home life instead, perhaps hire a translator to help sort out the necessary paperwork. Getting herself fired definitely didn't help her, and in the long run didn't help the child either. Now he's eating cheese sandwiches anyway. :nono:
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

justginger|1355493569|3331134 said:
I'm not sure I would have handled the situation the same way. I would have been tempted to pry into his home life instead, perhaps hire a translator to help sort out the necessary paperwork. Getting herself fired definitely didn't help her, and in the long run didn't help the child either. Now he's eating cheese sandwiches anyway. :nono:
Click to expand...

A translator is a great idea. Sending a translated copy of the paperwork home would have been much better for everyone. For that matter, having someone from the district call and talk to the parents in their native language may have been enough to take care of what they needed.

I can see the school's point -- sending free food with one kid affected their reported numbers and could easily turn into additional kids if they didn't react. They need to know how many meals are served for funding and planning purposes. Knowing how many free or reduced lunches they serve lets them get the funding they need to cover those expenses.

My mom is an elementary school lunch lady. In her school, kids under a certain age get a full hot lunch regardless of money. Kids over that age are supposed to get the cheese sandwich lunch if they don't have money with them. I know she'd have a hard time dealing with a situation similar to this woman. She knows all of the kids and truly cares about them. I'm not sure what solution she'd come up with, but I do know that she would not leave a kid hungry. I do know that she has access to the home contact information for all of the kids and has called parents directly when she was concerned.

FWIW, I really hope the district makes things right. They need to get someone out to that kid's family to help them fill out the paperwork. They also need to get a system in place so that other lunch ladies know how to handle this sort of situation. Giving a kid cheese sandwiches day after day when you know they are hungry should not be the only option open to them.
I'd also think it would be reasonable to re-hire the lunch lady with the warning that she can't do that again.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

I don't know what I think about the situation, I'll have to ponder for a bit.

I do know that it is extremely difficult to watch students go hungry day after day. When I taught high school, nearly 30% of the kids were eligible for free and reduced lunches. The problem is that the method for getting those lunches made it very obvious that they were getting a free or reduced lunch, and so many kids were uncomfortable taking advantage of it. Two of my colleauges and I ran a reading lab together, and we kept an entire cabinet stocked with food for the kids. We had "breakfast roundtables" and "lunch lessons" where we invited kids in to study before school and during lunch every day, but that was really just our way of giving them breakfast and lunch without identifying them as poor kids. It wasn't much, but at least we knew they ate something every day.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

This is a child, not a statistic. Yes, paperwork needs to be done. But in the meantime, do you let him starve? This woman did the only humane thing she could do.

When my children were in elementary school, there was always extra food set aside for children who either forgot their bagged lunch or the money for a school lunch. If one of us volunteer lunch room moms saw a child without a lunch, we brought him/her one.

Two lunches were served daily. A main one and an alternate for children who did not like the first one. What they got depended on their preference, not the ability to pay.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

I understand that she was just trying to do the right thing, but she didn't go about it the right way. If I were in her position I would have paid for the lunches myself. Regardless of intent, she was stealing.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

I know this may sound harsh, but the paperwork wasn't being filed so possibly there are problems in the home and CPS should be called in because if the child's needs are not being addressed in school, then there could be even more serious problems in the home. Once CPS is called, then surely THEY would make sure an interpretor is brought in. It's not like they'd go in and take the child away, they would make sure the forms are filled out so the kid can get his lunch.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

I do know that the school district is being bombarded with a lot of nasty emails, as several of my friends with kids in that district have received what is nothing more than a canned "we're not to blame, we contract our school lunch program out, we wouldn't let a kid starve" email in reply, but hopefully this gets rectified.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

ame|1355503092|3331266 said:
I do know that the school district is being bombarded with a lot of nasty emails, as several of my friends with kids in that district have received what is nothing more than a canned "we're not to blame, we contract our school lunch program out, we wouldn't let a kid starve" email in reply, but hopefully this gets rectified.
Click to expand...

Yes, many districts do contract out, such as my kids' school, but the women employed by those other companies are often moms of kids from the school or local community. Even, and OFTEN, they are parents who know some of the kids. This situation is exactly why a third party, like CPS, needed to get involved. That lunch lady needed to remove herself from the responsibility because it had grown too big for her job title, at that point.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

double post
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

There are other avenues she could have pursued instead of just stopping w/the paperwork. There would be a principal and superintendent of the school system, guidance counselors etc, that are available for concerns regarding a student. Or like mentioned before, pay for it herself until something could be done for the student.

We live in a low income area. Our principal said...75% I want to say, are on free/reduced lunches..it actually could even be more. They have a system where kids names are on a laminated sheet w/a barcode and the person who does the lunch line has a scanner thing and just clicks the barcode and it's automatically taken care of.

I do think it's pretty crappy that she was fired.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

Fire a few useless administrators at all levels and give every kid a free lunch, problem solved.
In the US no kid should go hungry or get bullied for being given second rate food ever.. period!
It is absolutely sickening to me.
The blame lies with the way the federal government hands out funds to subsidies lunches that causes this problem.

The way a lot of private schools handle it here is lunch and often breakfast is part of tuition and those that get free or reduced tuition eat for free and no one knows!
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

Just opened the article and read the update--the lunch lady has been rehired. :appl:
 
Re: School Lunch Lady Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunche

That's great that she was rehired. I don't think she went about it the right way either though, and I wonder if she ever got the principal and/or guidance counselor involved. Maybe one of them could have followed up with the family to see about the need for a translator if they didn't understand the paperwork that was sent home.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady

When you feel a law or rule is wrong you should work to change it.

This woman was not, "Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunches".
She was fired for breaking the rules laws of her employer/government.

Just imagine the chaos and anarchy that would ensue if we all ignored laws/rules that conflicted with our emotions/beliefs.
 
Re: School Lunch Lady

kenny|1355606486|3332251 said:
When you feel a law or rule is wrong you should work to change it.

This woman was not, "Fired for Giving Poor Child Hot Lunches".
She was fired for breaking the rules laws of her employer/government.

Just imagine the chaos and anarchy that would ensue if we all ignored laws/rules that conflicted with our emotions/beliefs.
Click to expand...


DITTO

If she really wanted to help she could have gone a different way, by forwarding this information up the chain of command - (the school WANTS to identify kids who are eligible), or even paid for the lunches herself, neither of which would have been breaking the rules. Too much work?

Because food is fuel, the school my child goes to, there is a round robin where parents provide healthy snacks which are served every day in the classroom. They have an edible garden which the children work in, and is used to demonstrate making healthy recipes (which again the students can eat). If the child is in the school lunch program the school provides both a hot lunch and a hot breakfast. You do have to fill out the paperwork. I don't know about other languages, but every single piece of paper we get from the the school is in both English and Spanish (including the form for school lunches).
 
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Jewelry Blog
PriceScope-Concierge-Ad
Find prime cuts.
Top