Enough already.

lots of people see this as shameful. Like this decent person who refused to be part of it.

deal more sense than the Canon-McMillan School District will extend a generous offer to Ms. Koltiska.

They would be adding a fine human being to their staff, from the sounds of this article.

The chronological age of a school student should have nothing to do with her or his need for something to eat at lunchtime. Whoever is in charge of cost-cutting on this budget should be asked to make a dinner for that one student's family and drive it over to their home and present it with a humble apology.

The child was fucking hungry. Give him the fucking food.

has been hired elsewhere.

But I see no reference to that in the posted link.

I think that is very fair. But everyone has not read that part and thought the kid had to watch the others eat which is not the case at all.

by my comments.

I mean a sandwich, fruit and milk is not bad and quite filling.

is barely a sandwich when others are eating the hot meal.

That's the cafeteria worker's frame of reference. I agree with her.

this woman's frame of reference.

You ought to admit it.

I'm also taking the woman's side in the cafeteria in Pennsylvania.

To deny ANY child a hot lunch over this is unconscionable.

Utterly so.

Chill

Bottom line. Hopefully the district changes procedures so all involved have a good resolution.

so that all students lunches were paid for. Sadly, I'm in the minority.

School donations are tax deductible.

Otherwise the "tax" that's being used to feed the kids whose parents don't/can't/won't pay or simply haven't paid comes from general revenues. You can be fairly sure that the school sent notices home. I've met parents whose attitude was, "I get them to the bus stop, they come home-- and from the time they're on the bus to the time they step onto the curb they're *your* problem." It works for homework ("why should my kid spend time at home doing schoolwork?&quot to fees ("I pay taxes, everything at school should be free&quot to dealing with teachers like they're serfs to expecting the school to essentially be their parents.

That means less money for co-teachers, for supplies, for upkeep, for perks that can make school fun. And that's a tax paid by the entire student body. For a high school of 3k students a few 10s of thousands of dollars isn't much. But for an elementary school that may only have 700 kids, that could mean $20 dollars less spending per student. For a class of 20, that's $400 dollars that could go to education but instead went to feeding some students. Or perhaps it's a half-time music teacher or art teacher, or the art teacher gets to use construction paper and tempura instead of clay and more interesting materials.

Zero sum.

I think I am going to cry now.

School should notify parents they are in arrears and as of a certain date the lunches will no longer be served unless there is payment. That way the parent can send the child to school with some kind of lunch and inform the child their lunch will come from home. If they truly cannot afford lunch for the child certainly other arrangements could be made.
To serve and then take away a child's lunch is indeed child abuse.

I like your ideas.

This story broke my heart.

She (or more accurately the school) does notify the parents. She also doesn't deny kids food.

Especially with dysfunctional families or families where a regular monthly income is a wish rather than a reality.
Some families experience a roller-coaster of incomes based on seasonal employment - maybe for six months, they make enough to just pay all the bills with maybe $50 left over each month, then for there next three months, there's not enough income to keep the lights on and pay the rent. But that first six months always counts against them when they're being assessed for "need" when it comes to subsidized services.
As for dysfunctional families - all you need is one passive aggressive or bi-polar parent, and the lunch bill does not get paid that month. Or an absent parent. Or a parent that has decided to kick the kid out of the house because that kid was too much trouble, and now the kid is couch-surfing for a month or two with another student whose parents are unaware that there's an outstanding lunch balance that needs to be paid.

School districts are trying to get money from a parent that is, for whatever reason, unable to keep to a monthly payment schedule. And hold the kids hostage until they can squeeze money from them.

Haele

it must not include humiliation of the child.
There are many scenarios that are the cause of non-payment. Everything you mentioned is what the school needs to look into to assure the child is getting a lunch.

It's been a reality I've experienced since getting my stepdaughter through middle school and high school in a big district. There were several times we unofficially took in one or two of her classmates for a couple weeks, and Laz would usually end up putting $20 - $40 on that kid's account to cover lunches for him or her when he'd take the kids to school in the morning.
The school district made it clear; it was the parent's responsibility to keep track of the kid's account, and if it went into the negative and the parents hadn't completed a subsidized lunch form for the year by the end of September, the district would just send out a letter or email notification, and stop allowing the kid to get a full lunch until enough money was coughed up to pay the outstanding balance and continue feeding him or her.

Y'know, in the bad old days when I was a kid, no matter where I was (California or Washington St.), from elementary school to middle school - the lunch ladies never questioned, it was understood that you'd get fed the lunch no matter if your parents paid or didn't.
Actually, in elementary school, I think lunch was included and provided for by the school district. I remember in middle school and high school, we paid if we didn't bring lunch, but it was only a quarter/fifty cents a meal.
The only caveat in middle school was if you couldn't pay or your parents hadn't set up an account, you could still go through the line, but you only got milk and didn't get the dessert...and we had some very nice lunches there, no corporate sponsorship of lunch, they actually made food in an actual industrial kitchen.

They always had two types of seasonal vegetables (very rarely fries or tator tots), fresh fruit and there was always baked goods made there - I still remember the smell of cinnamon crumb cake in the basement lunchroom on a cold winter day...total punishment for not having enough money to pay for the full lunch on Lasagna day...

And there was always an area at the end of the lunch line before the desserts and "special drinks" where you could pick up a PB&J, egg salad, or tuna fish sandwich, depending on what they had out to serve, if you didn't like the hot meal or if you chose soup instead.

However, it's not so nice on average nowadays. Too many Chicken Fingers, Taco Tuesdays, microwave pizza, maybe a "salad bar"...

And if a kid's account isn't paid up, they get the American cheese on White Bread sandwich and bag of apple slices treatment.


Haele

Punishing a child for adult failures. Yeah, that will correct the problem.

If the sons of company directors, and judges' private daughters:

Had to go to school in a slum school...
built by some joker in a dark back alley.
Had to heard in to classrooms
cramped with worry.
With a view of the slag heaps
and stagnant pools.
Had to cramp through corridors
grey with age,
And play in a crackpot concrete cage;

Buttons would be pressed.
Rules would be broken.
Strings would be pulled,
And magic words spoken.
Invisible fingers would mold
palaces of gold.

Many a time I have paid out of my own pocket as both a Cafeteria Worker and as a TA for a child who wanted a Hot Lunch and were in arrears in their payments.

While neither positions make a lot of money, is less than $3 for a child's lunch too much to ask? If school didn't want us to do this, I slipped the money to the child myself. FIRE ME. Your job is to teach and well being of children, which includes making sure they EAT.

and districts aren't forced to pennypinch like this.

This past year, the Pennsylvania legislature actually passed and Gov Wolf signed a new funding formula for school districts based on the work of a bi-partisan commission. Unfortunately, the legislature also made sure the new formula, which redistributes money to the poorest districts, only applied to NEW education basic funding. The funding increase was so small, the new formula barely helped at all.

It would be poetic justice if Turzai (R speaker of state house) lost his seat over a local problem that he can't even control, which is reportedly at least a 50-50 chance.

Anyway, it's not real common knowledge, but the federal school lunch program now has a category called "community eligibility" if the population of a school district is at least 40% economically disadvantaged. If the district qualifies, everyone gets a free school lunch - no need for individual applications. Of course, when the GOP congresscritters realized it, they want to stop the program.

Spare the child the shame of having to give up what he held in his hands, then force him to walk back through the line to replace his lunch with a cold sandwich.

It's wonderful they're able to provide a decent meal to the younger kids, even for those who can't afford it, but why not mix their largesse with a measure of human kindness and spare the child from overt embarrassment.

And wasted. Once the food has been served, let the child eat it.

or just fucking cry.....

Not the Onion....

...watch any Billy Connolly routine you can find on You Tube...

should be redrawn as emaciated.

n/t.

officials??

A super in the Highlands School District gets over $128,000 per year plus full healthcare benefits...teachers average $68,000 plus they pay less than $90 a month for health care 90% of workers would envy and this district ain't so well off! Oh and the teachers just got a 3 percent raise for the next 5 years but bitched about paying more for their health care. Oh, and if the teachers go on strike, once it's settled, they get ALL their backpay AFTER the strike is settled. Most people in PA. don't know that.

We have 2200 studentsspread among 1100 school families and 20 thousand residents with 80% senior citizens and 50% of those on fixed incomes.

Ain't America great?

That's terrible!

Gasp!

They deserve every penny, and more. And, sorry, but a 68K AVERAGE for a teacher's salary is looooooooooow. And, good, I love it when teachers strike and get a better contract negotiation. It is DISGUSTING how Americans -- and some DUers -- degrade teachers and their unions. It's only when they give thair lives protecting kids from a school shooter that they are widely publicly lauded.

What a post.

and it sounds as though you are perhaps, how shall I say it? Anti-union and anti teacher? Am I correct?

Of course you may not believe children are our most valuable resource...

and ALL ranking personnel, have to serve on the lunch lines and be the ones to actually deny children food.

despicable, arrogant, child-loathing assholes, one and all.

hey, how about getting some money from your precious sports programs?????

as can be evidenced through their policies.

of these children, not give a single, solitary damn.

Central Administration
1 North Jefferson Ave
Canonsburg PA 15317

Phone: 724.746.2940
Fax: 724.746.9184

families owe over 20,000--which is a bit over $185 per family, at $3 a meal, 57 meals unpaid each???? almost three months of lunches???

"There has never been the intent with the adoption of this polity to shame or embarrass a child," he said.

really??? what in the fucking hell do you THINK happens when you take a child's lunch away?

A good chance the student didn't have breakfast. I live 20 minutes from this school district, though another county, I am ashamed at what they are doing. Feed the kids and take the parents to the local Magistrate for payment. That's a simple procedure. You don't need an attorney at that level of court, it's a civil matter. Find an administrator who isn't doing much (I'm sure there's a few of them) & have them take the past due invoices & have the magistrate rule accordingly.

have good, nourishing, nutritious food, their behaviour and even grades, improve.

why is this so hard for districts to understand?

If kids are required by law to attend school for 6 or 8 hours per day and the parents don't send them, the parents can be fined or jailed. So if it's required, why aren't meals provided?

If a kid ends up in Juvy, he gets free meals. If the parent goes to jail for keeping his kid home from school and goes to jail, he or she gets free meals.

If it's mandatory to attend school til you're of age, then they should get free meals. The gluttonous legislators eat free on the tax payers at a yearly cost probably higher than all the poor kids in the PA. schools.

Contact your local rep and state senator...unless they're out to lunch!

would just take money away from something else; teacher pay and number of teachers, supplies, books, etc.

Of course if the residents of the school district were willing to pay higher property taxes to fund all these "free" school lunches, that's fine. But most people get the vapors when their taxes go up a dime.

were raised to follow basic moral principles.

One of them is not eating in front of other people who are without food. Especially, not eating in front of someone who is hungry.

I am not seeing a good reason why this teaching should be abandoned just so some school district can balance its budget.

No Christian am I, but when What's-His-Name says "As to the least of these, so then unto me," there is firm ground to assume that you don't yank food away from children when they are hungry.

and he didn't quit - he even told them it would provide "opportunity".

School lunch worker quits after being forced to throw away student’s hot meal
September 20, 2016 4:23 PM

By T. Rees Shapiro
The Washington Post


Stacy Koltiska said that she will never forget the look in the little boy's eyes. As an elementary school lunchroom staffer, her job was to work the register for the children when they paid for their meals.

But the boy had a negative balance on his account, and a new policy in the Canon-McMillan, Pa., school district this year prevents cafeteria workers from serving a hot meal to students who owe more than $25. Koltiska said she had to follow the policy and was ordered to refuse the boy his hot meal because he couldn't pay for it.


"As a Christian, I have an issue with this," said Koltiska, of Canonsburg, Pa. "It's sinful and shameful is what it is."

Students who were refused the hot meal instead got a sandwich made of two slices of wheat bread and a single, cold slice of "government cheese," Koltiska said. The contents of the hot lunch, such as chicken nuggets or corn dog bites, were thrown away, Koltiska said, even though parents would still be charged the full regular price of $2.05 for the meal. Koltiska said that she resigned out of a moral obligation.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article102988672.html#storylink=cpy

[center]

Stacy Koltiska, a human who loves children,
who has had to face the effects of decisions
made by cold, vicious idiots. Bless Stacy Koltiska
for caring when clearly those who make the big
bucks off manipulating children don't care. [center]

So they just threw the lunch away instead of giving it to the poor kid and then they charged the parents account for it anyway? WTF!! This whole policy is just about shaming, not saving money. God, I'm so angry I could scream!

Young poor black lady gets pregnant,

The conservative state that she lives in has basically gotten rid of almost all abortion clinics because they are "pro life" and believe all life is precious and deserves to live.

The baby is born but by time he turns 16 he is hardened due to his environment and the conservative government not having pro life policies like health care, free school lunch, welfare, and so on.

He commits petty crimes and eventually commits murder.

Conservative "pro life" government kills him.

OK so you'd give the kid a free lunch; then what? The school can't create money out of thin air. They spend the money they're given, period.

Tax the rich, sure. But the school administrations also doesn't create tax policy, and even if they did that doesn't put money in your bank TODAY to pay for supplies, pay your teachers, BUY MORE LUNCHES.

This seems like a convenient opportunity for DUers to once again blame schools for societal problems. I don't see anyone on here who sounds like they've actually managed revenues and expenses, who is proposing a good alternative for the schools that are asked to provide lunch, asked to charge for it, and given zero mechanism to actually do so.

We can think with our hearts and be sympathetic, and still manage to use our brains.

Oh the horror. I had that everyday in school.

Never realized I was being subjected to "child abuse".

In fact, most kids brought their lunch because we didn't want to waste what little time we had to eat standing in line for the hot lunch. I think I was preparing lunches for myself and my younger brothers by the time I was 12.

A mistake was made but it was an honest mistake and the little boy shouldn't have been made to pay (metaphorically) for it. Embarrassing him in public was horrible, but the school district can't give routinely give full hot lunches to everybody if parents simply don't feel like paying.

If the little boy were eligible for free or reduced-price meals, this wouldn't have happened. Presumably his parents just didn't bother to pay (or maybe they missed the email). If I'm wrong about this particular situation, I apologize (and maybe I am, since Ms. Koltiska feels this strongly about it), but as a general principle I can understand why the school district has to provide either minimal or no lunch to students who can pay but don't.

Having said that, I also understand that even people who don't meet the guidelines for free or reduced lunch can have a hard time coming up with the money for a full-priced lunch. If it were up to me, every kid would be entitled to a free lunch as part of the cost of educating them.

It's not well known, but there's a recent provision in the federal law that allows school districts to apply for free school meals under a community eligibility standard of roughly 40% or more of the community are economically disadvantaged. If the district's resident community meets that, then ALL students, regardless of income, receive free meals. Individual families do not have to apply for the free lunch program and there is no stigma attached to anyone.

Caviar for the wealthy, bread crumbs for the poor.

It really drove home how broken our system is. He went to Lyon and visited a school cafeteria. The (hundreds of) kids ate a very high quality three course meal, prepared by an actual chef, every day for lunch. The total lunch budget per student was less than half of what we spend in the US for the slop served up in public school lunches. If they can do that for ~$2/day, why are kids here unable to eat at all?

And in a very public way, in front of their peers.

So schools can blather about not intending to harm or embarrass the child but they're full of shit.

Punishing the child to motivate the parents is just that - punishing the child.

While in Germany, I remember seeing shame masks from the middle ages in a museum.

People would be made to worn them and to stand or be paraded in the center of town.

This seems far too similar to me, even worse, he's being shamed for actions not even his own.

We say we value children in this society, then a school district implements a policy that openly and publicly devalues children in this way.

that, Stacy, is what makes you different from republicans

Most of the time the kids would be fine with the cheese sandwich, but occasionally if the child said he didn't have breakfast, he would want more than just a cheese sandwich. Should it really matter who pays for it? Although we didn't really expect the parents to pay us back for a $3 meal, we would send a note home saying that we bought them lunch because he was very, very hungry and was in arrears on lunch payments. I am talking about TA's, not Cafeteria staff.

BTW, when I worked in a Florida School District, all children got free, hot breakfasts every day; poor or rich didn't matter. In fact even in the Summers, the schools would be open every morning for any child to come in to get a free hot breakfast.

As of the census[10] of 2000, there were 8,607 people, 3,809 households, and 2,285 families residing in the borough. The population density was 3,703.5 people per square mile (1,432.4/km²). There were 4,144 housing units at an average density of 1,783.1 per square mile (689.7/km²). The racial makeup of the borough was 91.01% White, 6.53% African American, 0.06% Native American, 0.64% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 0.19% from other races, and 1.50% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.72% of the population.
There were 3,809 households out of which 23.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.6% were married couples living together, 12.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.0% were non-families. 34.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 17.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.88.
In the borough the population was spread out with 20.3% under the age of 18, 7.1% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 22.9% from 45 to 64, and 21.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 87.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.8 males.
The median income for a household in the borough was $31,184, and the median income for a family was $42,793. Males had a median income of $32,458 versus $22,733 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $17,469. About 5.8% of families and 8.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.5% of those under age 18 and 6.6% of those age 65 or over.


For their school to have a policy of not feeding kids who's parents don't keep up payment is a total disgrace. Many of those children should qualify for free lunches. They should instead, contact the parents to determine if the family is going through a bad period and if so, put the children on the free lunch list and it should be done in a way that no other student knows anything about it.

Last edited Wed Sep 21, 2016, 10:16 AM - Edit history (1)

There are many Type 1 Diabetics who are older students. It is a bunch of bullshit. If my diabetic son went into insulin shock I would sue that school district. Their policy is not only draconian but dangerous as well.

supply his lunch account with funds, provide a bagged lunch option, or make sure he has sufficient funds to pay for lunch?

OKAY!

I wouldn't want it taken out on my child

story is about a family who apparently either doesn't have the funds to buy the makings of a basic lunch, can't or chooses not to fund their child's lunch account. Blame should be shared between both the parents and school district.

Even parents who supply lunch accounts with funds and think everything is just fine can get screwed....well, actually their children.

are capable of making their own bagged lunch. That's what my diabetic students did. It was easier to keep a carb count than eating a "hot meal" of chicken nuggets, french fries and ketchup as a vegetable. They also carried honey or glucose packets for a quick source of sugar should their blood sugar get too low.