Holey moley.

Did she pay it out of her own pocket? It says she offered to pay, but not what type of money she paid? If it's the cafeteria, she can't do that. It's not hers to give away.

But I will say, in my school district, if you don't have money, it just got added to your tab, until last year. Now, it's free for everyone. I love my state!

I agree....you can walk someone over to the cashier and pay for their meal...you can't EVER give someone something that isn't yours.

I had a boss that used to sell me tires for my DH's truck for $10.....but I paid for them.....not very much.....but I didn't take them because we had a warehouse full. We also threw out used tires that were almost new.....I couldn't keep those either.

What a darn shame !!

The problem with the system is: All food left over HAS TO BE TOSSED OUT! There is always food tossed out. With as many hungry and homeless people we have, I always found it awful that we threw food away.

The policy is in place, you give food to a teacher, as student, a custodian, you will be fired!

But I sure didn't like it.

Moni

In cases like this, which seem so ridiculous, sometimes I suspect there is more to the story. I wonder if she was a poor employee, and "they" were looking for a reason.

Now that is irritating Moni! Why throw it out? Ridiculous.

When I was working as a nurse in an elementary school before the more widespread lunch assistance, I paid for a lot of lunches and floated loans for others. It was an inner city school and many of the parents were very poor.

For a while the cafeteria manager decided to give peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to all who could not afford lunch, and after a while that was stopped. I really think Rob's district has the right idea, just make it free for everyone.

I've read of other instances where people got into trouble for providing school lunches to kids and I just don't get it. Who really can refuse lunch to a hungry child, and how does a hungry child learn anything in the afternoon if they've had no lunch.

My SIL retired from teaching at 55 recently, and while she could easily afford it, she kept a supply of lunch and milk tickets in her desk, no kids in her class went without a meal. She bought coats for kids who needed them plenty of times too. Very quietly.

When we were in school, a breakfast program wasn't in place. Now its necessary with a growing number showing up to be fed as well as taught.

I wouldn't have had the job long if telling a kid they had to go hungry when their friends around them were eating was a requirement.

Her mistake was not paying for the kid's lunch first. The article states when she was reported by the supervisor she then offered to pay. Sad situation because she was trying to be kind. Wish she would have gotten a warning instead of being fired.

Sad situation for the kid but the article is a misleading clickbait.

She wasn't fired for giving the kid a free lunch, she was fired for stealing from her employer.

Horrible! Moni, I work for a marketing research company. I can't tell you the amount of food and products that are thrown out because the product is "top secret."

Some of the food I can understand as we as workers have to sign releases, but paper products? Really?

The article to which Moni posted a link is dated today (December 23, 2015), but there was an identical story on the news a couple of months ago. IIRC, the worker in that incident had been warned on more than one occasion that she couldn't give food away.

Moni's article ended with, "When contacted, the school district declined to comment saying it was personnel matter." To which GrandmaMary replied, in part, "I don't think it was a personnel problem." The issue of whether or not to give food to a hungry child who doesn't have the money to pay for it is not a personnel problem. What the school district declined to comment on was the termination of the employee who gave away the food to the child. That is a personnel matter which cannot be discussed by the district with anyone other than the employee and the employee's legal representative.

Lindsay I didn't realize, it was an old story. It was on fox news here in OKC this morning.

Since I really felt bad about the tossing of food, since day one, when I started working in the cafeteria I had the need to speak up on the food throwing away issue.

There were several of us ladies on the registers with money in our pockets to help kids out. Lots of kids repaid us, but lots didn't. We just could not see, kids go hungry... and are supposed to learn! We also could not see kids go hungry and we were told to throw that left over food away. There was ALWAYS food left over.

There is no one to go and get money, or to take a kid past the cashier... we were always short handed.. and over worked... and tired. We were usually 2 or 3 servers short.

Communication from the office to us was nill. Even though one of us went daily to the office to find out about school trips etc. we never knew if less kids would be there... and thus, there was often food for over 50 that was tossed.

The WHOLE system stinks.

No, Moni, the story you posted and linked to is not an old story -- apparently it hit the news today, and the woman had been fired sometime last week. There had been an eerily identical story on the news a couple of months ago. It's possible the two stories are the same, since in today's article it says this:

"He said I was on permanent leave, until he called me. I should not call them. He will call me. And they never called me. I got the letter."

So, maybe it's the same employee and she's been "on leave" for a couple of months and just recently got written notice that she's been terminated.

In my opinion, the food was not hers to give away. However, if she first paid for it and then gave it to the student, that's not stealing, it is compassion. The order of events is critical. If a supervisor saw her dole out the food without hearing the conversation or knowing agreed upon arrangements, it could be seen as giving away the goods. Her mistake might be, not promptly insuring that payment was made.

JemDandy, the employee didn't offer (or try) to pay for the meal until after her supervisor busted her.

I think they were out to get rid of her anyway. ~$2 isn't that much money to get worked up over.

I don't think this was about a single $2 event. The management could not allow a precedent to develop that free food is available if you "work the system". If they allowed this for one student, they would have to permit it for any student else they could be cited for favoritism.

I do think that something could have been done on a one time basis, but it would have to handled differently than what apparently was done.

I think the school completely over reacted and IMHO, the workers heart was most definitly in the right place. If they throw food away and the meals are only 1.70 to begin with, what are they really loosing? I get paying for things that belong to the employer, especially when it's something for personal use. I also get setting precedence, however if there is a problem with kids going hungry at the school (again while food is being tossed) the school should be held accountable and forced to come up with a better policy. Schools aren't a private business either, they're government property and those meals are paid for by the tax payers. I have a really hard time believing that the community supporting them would want a child to go hungry especially when there's enough to go around and left overs are wasted. Sometimes when confronted with a sad situation, our hearts take over and all we want to do is console or fix the problem. Realistically, all the supervisor had to do was tell her, "thank you for caring about the kids like that, but just to be sure no one misinterprets your kindness, next time please ask the child to take a seat while you go pay for the food first. Once it's paid for then you can go give it to the child."

I sincerely hope that the publicity of the story shames the school management into giving the woman her job back, schools need caring souls like her.

I think that child should have been forced to dumpster dive! Yep, prepare those no-goodniks for the life they deserve! How dare someone think of making sure the child eats first, and then worry about how it gets paid for later! Yep this is the BEST system in the world. If you can't afford to eat, you can't afford to live!

Teach those little kids personal responsibility NOW. It's never too early to drill personal responsibility into their minds. What? Do they think life is literally a free lunch? Besides, those kids should have been issued credit cards to swipe from kindergarten! It's about time they learned to manage their finances and pay interest fees.

And those parents! Don't get me started. I'm just glad they had the good sense to can that worker and nip that communist/socialist do-gooder right in the bud before the cancer could spread! It's things like this that lead directly to dictatorship. It's Obama's fault!

Seems to me that we need to know WHY the child needed a free lunch.

While I completely agree and even wondered why the child would be at school without a lunch, I don't understand why we should need to know before forming an opinion on the matter. To me, they are two separate issues; what I wonder is if the parents have spoken up for the lunch worker.

My comment was too brief. What I meant was that in general we need to know why so many kids need free breakfast and lunch. I would never deny food to a child but--having been a teacher (back in the dark ages) I know there are many sides to such stories. When I was teaching, lunches were 25 cents (I said Dark Ages!) and we had "coins" the size of a quarter that we quietly gave to kids who couldn't afford lunch. The kids had food and no one was the wiser.

I was working in schools in the inner city, were a lot of poverty level families live. If you are in an lower income bracket, you can qualify for a free lunch. ALL breakfast are free. We had three tiers. Free, reduced, and full pay students. The free was the BIGGEST group.

Moni

Senior, I'm from those dark ages too and even after all these years I still often think about several of the wonderful teachers I was so fortunate to have with sincere love. To say they left a mark is an understatement and I'm sure lots of the students you gave coins to all those years ago remember you now too.

While it doesn't solve the problem of children without money for lunch and no food provided from home, it does look like the 'lunch lady' does have her job back if she wants it. Maybe someone will look into the district food program for kids more carefully and come up with a plan that works for the kids and whatever budget must have been in question for the school with all the attention this firing brought them.

Not lunch, but a needy boy. See Tommy