Anya Howard, a six-year-old playschool student in Greenwood, Indiana, went to the school cafeteria as she always does, to get her lunch.
Anya requested for a hot lunch which was given to her, but while she tried to make the payment, the cafeteria assistant realised that the little girl did not have sufficient money in her student account. The assistant told Anya to give back her lunch of a $2.25 hot meal and then asking her to go back of the lunch queue and wait for an alternate lunch.
The little girl had to walk past 20 other schoolchildren to get to the end of the queue. The other students saw what had transpired and she saw them laughing at her.
She told the episode to her grandfather, Dwight Howard, when got home as well as how miserable she felt when the students laughed at her. The Southwest Elementary school also provided a letter to notify her parents that her account only had just 10 cents.
After the episode, her grandfather, an ex-teacher, challenged the school for troubling his granddaughter and making her take a walk of shame, which was needless and embarrassing. Dwight claimed the awkward circumstances was all the school’s responsibility as they failed to inform the parents that Anya’s student account balance had slipped to just 10 cents. As per the school policy, they should send payment notices every time the accounts hit a $5 balance.
Dwight then called on the district officers to re-assess the cafeteria rules to evade this type of event to happen again. The cafeteria episode turns out to be a giant topic after Dwight came out to speak to a TV channel about it and just how he sought the rule reformed.
Subsequently, Kent Dekoninck, the Greenwood Community Schools administrator, spoke to the TV channel and explained that the district procedure is to notify a student’s family when an account balance is $5. He also explained it is not rare for numerous students to be given another lunch and whenever such things happened, school staff handles it in the best possible way.
Dekoninck further clarified that they let students to charge for two hot meals before they have the alternate meal. Though, conflicting to the administrator’s clarification, the school acknowledged in the note that Anya took home that they would not permit students to charge for any meals.
Meanwhile, the principal of Southwest Elementary did not instantly answer to calls or emails requesting explanations
The idea of another meals is certainly awkward. Children should not be exposed to any form of shame and the idea of alternative meals look as if to have that consequence on them and should be changed.
