A 6-year-old girl was left humiliated after staff told her to return her warm school meal because she had run out of funds on her lunch account.
Despite the fact that the lunch only costs $2.25, little Anya Howard was ordered to return her meal as soon as the cafeteria worker noticed she had run out of funds on her account.
In addition, the employee “humiliated” the girl by telling her to go all the way to the back of the line and wait for a sandwich instead.
“They told me I needed to give my food back,” Anya said in an interview with WISH, claiming that she felt “sad” because her fellow classmates were laughing at her.
After the family was alerted of the incident, upset grandfather Dwight Howard contacted the media and slammed Greenwood Community Schools’ “cafeteria walk of shame.”
As he said, the young girl was embarrassed by the incident because the staff didn’t handle the situation as they should.
“When she was talking to me about it, she was more than ‘sad.’ I mean, that’s embarrassing for a little 6-year-old,” Dwight added.
“They waited until there was a dime left, denied her the opportunity to eat the lunch that she had [been served] and then she had to go to the end of the line to wait for a PB&J.”
After the incident went viral, the school’s superintendent Dr. Kent DeKoninck spoke out in an e-mail statement and wrote:
“It is not an uncommon occurrence for multiple students to be served the alternate lunch on any given day. Any time this happens, our staff looks to handle all of these as discreetly as possible… We do allow elementary students to charge two hot meals before receiving the alternate meal.”
According to the superintendent, the school has also approached the girl’s family and “came to a real good understanding of the situation.” They have also suspended the cold sandwich policy and now offer a warm meal to students who don’t have the means to pay for the main meal.
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Replaced!