A Utah school, where a nutrition manger has seized and threw away the lunches of at least 40 children over unpaid bills, has ordered an inquiry into the shocking incident.
Uintah Elementary primary school officials have also sought apology from the outraged parents after the accused the school authorities of humiliation.
Reportedly, all kids, who faced the similar behaviour, were later given fruit and milk as their lunches were thrown away.
“This was a mistake. This was handled wrong,” Jason Olsen, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City school system said while adding “The parents were notified about negative balances on Monday itself.”
Olsen was very quick to add that a child nutrition manager had decided to withhold lunches to deal with the issue.
“Lunches were thrown away because once food is served to one student it can’t be served to another,” Olsen explained in an attempt to clear the air.
On Monday a nutrition manager arrived at Uintah Elementary to investigate the high number of negative balances on the accounts that students use to pay for lunches prepared and served by the school.
“She took my lunch away and said go get a milk,” Sophia Isom, a fifth-grader at Salt Lake City’s Uintah Elementary School, said.
“I came back and asked, what’s going on? Then she handed me an orange and said, you don’t have any money in your account so you can’t get lunch,” Isom added.
According to the school system, after seeing the negative balances in big numbers, the nutrition manager and another school employee began calling parents in an effort to recoup payment.
