For many of us — especially if we were on a program that gave us lunches at reduced or free prices — the school cafeteria was a humiliating place. Kids, especially in elementary school, pay attention to what people are eating, whether they’re getting the same lunch, and why some kids’ lunch cards are different colors than others, even though their food is the same. That can be bad enough, but a Pennsylvania school recently put a new policy in place that actively humiliates students whose parents haven’t paid for lunch, and the cafeteria worker who had to enforce the new rules just quit and sent the community an important message.
According to the New York Daily News, Stacy Koltiska abruptly left her job only weeks into the new school year due to the fact that kids were being punished for their lunch accounts being in arrears:
The lunch lady revealed a new policy passed over the summer which calls for students owing more than $25 on their lunch accounts to be given a cold sandwich in place of the day’s hot meal — if they’re in Kindergarten through sixth grade, anyway. Seventh through twelfth graders don’t get a replacement lunch, period.
The problems here are readily apparent. Not only are elementary and middle school-aged kids not the keepers of their parents’ finances, but not giving a kid a lunch is both insult and injury. And that’s why Koltiska — who couldn’t bear to rip lunches away from hungry kids — decided she needed to go. Especially because, as she points out in her Facebook post, the job was only worth it because she was able to make kids happy, not to watch them cry as their food was taken from them.
It appears that kids’ accounts were still being billed full price for lunch, even if they were only getting a sandwich. And Koltiska’s story of having to take chicken away from a crying first grader is heartbreaking. Koltiska also acknowledged the fact that it’s “sickening” that kids were being treated this way considering how much food the school was throwing away on a daily basis. She also noted the fact that a school bus driver in a nearby district tried to help kids by paying for the lunches himself, but was promptly let go after he posted about it on Facebook.
Koltiska urges anyone who is as outraged as she is to contact the school district and speak with the superintendent about this policy.
NYDN reports that the school district knew that implementing the new policy would be controversial, but the aim of this policy was never to “shame or embarrass a child.” Instead, the policy was meant to collect money the school was owed, which ranged from $60,000 to $100,000 per year. There’s been no word on how much money the school district is wasting by throwing out the lunches the kids weren’t allowed to have or whether the policy is actually helping the school collect monies owed.
Update: A representative of the school district reached out and confirmed that the policy will not be changed and that Ms. Koltiska will not be returning to work as she had resigned from the district. A meeting to discuss the policy will be held by the school board, but no date has been scheduled as of yet.
