Vent - Utter Brainlessness

Azari

Looking at this you have to wonder if our schools are being run by complete idiots.

It's important that children are properly fed and it's also important not to subject them to unnecessarily humiliating situations.

A little bit of intelligence applied to the system used here would have prevented this ever happening.

And as for the lumpen headed 'bussiness manager' whose best effort at a response seems to be that they were "abiding by the rules" : Yes, you great numpty, it's your responsibility to arrange the system and the rules in such a way that this can't happen as a result of a simple mistake on the part of one of the parents.

MoneyMate

Crazy I thought it should be an Apple for the Teacher, at least the boy had something , This country has gone mad.

ThumbRemote

From the article: "Mr and Mrs Lynn were notified on three occasions prior to the mealtime of interest that their debt was due and that their son would not receive a meal if the debt remained unpaid."

So they were told, they ignored it, yet it's the schools fault?

The school can't win here. Stop children eating and they are punishing them for their parents (in)actions. Let them run up debts and the rest of their budget suffers. Let the child of a governor run up a debt but prevent other children doing so and it's favouritism.

Azari

ThumbRemote wrote: »

From the article: "Mr and Mrs Lynn were notified on three occasions prior to the mealtime of interest that their debt was due and that their son would not receive a meal if the debt remained unpaid."

That has been added since I posted. (You can see the update time at the top of the BBC article.)

Pre-warning the parents was exactly what I had in mind when I said 'arrange the system'.

So they were told, they ignored it, yet it's the schools fault?

No.

VSynth

I blame the parents.

RuthnJasper

Azari wrote: »

That has been added since I posted. (You can see the update time at the top of the BBC article.)

Pre-warning the parents was exactly what I had in mind when I said 'arrange the system'.


No.

I was about to post my surprise at your (usually sound) judgement Azari! But then I read the rest of the thread

I agree - It is a parental responsibility to ensure that children are properly fed and clothed. If I had been told that the school could not afford to feed my child for the want of a £1.75 debt I would do everything conceivable (no pun intended) to pay that debt.

I don't have children myself - but when times were REALLY hard for me I gladly went without a meal so that my dog could eat. After all, it isn't a dog's - or, most especially, a child's - fault that those responsible for their welfare mishandled their finances.

And I certainly wouldn't expose a child to a humiliating media spectacle over the affair.

lucy03

If the information given is true, and the parent ignored three warnings, then I personally find it hard to blame the school. I personally think that most parents faced with a "your child won't be given a meal" would either pay or try and make some arrangement with the school if money was an issue or there were other problems in their life.

It would be very easy to say that schools should always provide food even if they're not paid for it, but I assume that will ultimately come out of the education budget for the school, which is only sustainable to a point.

jackieblack

While it is the parent's responsibilty to ensure they have paid before expecting their child be given a meal, surely it would have been better for the school to ring the parents, explain the situation and get their agreement that the money would be brought in at pick-up time or the next day.

There is no excuse for the child to be humiliated due to something that was not in his control

ThumbRemote

Azari wrote: »

That has been added since I posted. (You can see the update time at the top of the BBC article.)

Fair enough.

VSynth

They were notified on 3 occasions, how many more chances should they be given?

A school doesn't have a bottomless pit of money.

Last year at my fiancee's school they lost £3000 of books which students failed to return.

ThumbRemote

jackieblack wrote: »

While it is the parent's responsibilty to ensure they have paid before expecting their child be given a meal, surely it would have been better for the school to ring the parents, explain the situation and get their agreement that the money would be brought in at pick-up time or the next day.

So where do you draw the line? What if the parents don't pay? At some point you have to stop the child from having the meals.

In fact it's worse to allow them to run up a debt, because then if they send some money later, who has to decide whether it's used for that days meal, or to pay off part of the debt accrued.

Way more sensible to not allow any debt - it's a school, not a credit agency - and warn parents in advance. Exactly as they did.