Sep 20, 2016 3 min read

It may not be quite as cruel and hard-hearted as Ebenezer Scrooge musing about the “useful course” of prisons and workhouses for the destitute, but the policy of Canon-McMillan School District that replaces a hot lunch with a cheese sandwich for elementary-age students with food accounts overcharged by more than $25 is certainly stumbling, insensitive and, above all, wasteful.

As we reported Saturday, Wylandville Elementary School cafeteria worker Stacy Yannazzo Koltiska resigned and took to Facebook to outline her grievances against the district’s policy after she had to take away the chicken of a boy in the first grade and replace it with a cheese sandwich because his account was overcharged. Koltiska told our David Singer she “just couldn’t do it anymore” and she will “never forget the look on his face and then his eyes welled up with tears.”

To make matters worse, the hot lunch he had been given was simply tossed away, meaning the district is wasting food as well as meting out punishment to a young student because of the carelessness or, perhaps, indigence of his or her parents. A cheese sandwich, though it’s at least not gruel, has become a mark of shame for students who have no say-so when it comes to the pocketbooks of their parents.

The district was quick to emphasize students who participate in the free or reduced-price lunch program get the meals they need, while students in the paid lunch program receive the cheese sandwich, along with a side dish of fruit and a beverage, if their accounts are in arrears, and the cheese sandwich and fruit fulfill daily dietary requirements (older students get no lunch at all). They also said they are not alone in deploying this policy, and it comes with the imprimatur of Pennsylvania School Boards Association. According to the district, it’s working – the number of families with outstanding accounts dropped since the policy was enacted.

Moreover, the school board decided last week to write off more than $20,000 in unpaid balances of students receiving reduced-price lunches, and pay off the amount with funds from reserve accounts.

Fair enough. And, yes, school districts have to have some means to collect overdue money. But there has to be a better, more efficient and tactful way of accomplishing this than taking a hot meal away from a student and replacing it with a cheese sandwich, with everyone in the cafeteria as witnesses. How about calling the parents or guardians? Making them aware of the free or reduced-price lunch program if they are navigating a rough patch? Or, if cheese sandwiches must be offered, how about placing them on students’ trays in the first place, rather than removing a hot meal and depositing it in the trash?

Childhood can be a wondrous time, but it also can be a brutal passage, particularly for young people who are a little different than their classmates, or have a little less change in their pockets. Canon-McMillan School District shouldn’t be making their lives any tougher.