Vent - Utter Brainlessness

jackieblack

ThumbRemote wrote: »

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.

Well I guess each school has to draw their own line, according to their finances, but there are few schools whose finances will collapse over £1.75.

There is still no excuse for treating a child that way.

Maybe things are unusual here, but we have bever had a parent fail to bring/send in money after a verbal agreement has been elicited from them (rather than just sending home a note)

If we have a child who has no credit for a school dinner, but has not brought a packed lunch, we would contact a parent to ask what they want us to do about their child's lunch that day.
We've never had a parent say 'Oh, just let him/her go hungry'!

PILES

jackieblack wrote: »

Well I guess each school has to draw their own line, according to their finances, but there are few schools whose finances will collapse over £1.75.

There is still no excuse for treating a child that way.

Maybe things are unusual here, but we have bever had a parent fail to bring/send in money after a verbal agreement has been elicited from them (rather than just sending home a note)

If we have a child who has no credit for a school dinner, but has not brought a packed lunch, we would contact a parent to ask what they want us to do about their child's lunch that day.
We've never had a parent say 'Oh, just let him/her go hungry'!

The parents had three opportunites to sort this, they did not do so. Its their fault not the schools. With regard to the humiliation aspect there is more humiliation surely by bringing it to a national audience via the BBC. ALso "We've never had a parent say 'Oh, just let him/her go hungry'". Hardly surprising if someone else will provide.

jaydeeuk1

I was almost in tears too when I realised Toyota wanted to make me pay for the car.

Bloody entitlement culture strikes again.

ThumbRemote

jackieblack wrote: »

Well I guess each school has to draw their own line, according to their finances, but there are few schools whose finances will collapse over £1.75.

It's not £1.75 though.

It's £1.75 x number of pupils x number of days you let them off, plus the staff cost of chasing the money.

jackieblack

PILES wrote: »

The parents had three opportunites to sort this, they did not do so. Its their fault not the schools. With regard to the humiliation aspect there is more humiliation surely by bringing it to a national audience via the BBC.

Oh, I agree that it is the parent's fault.
But I don't think the school handled it well either.
And it's the child who has suffered.

jackieblack

ThumbRemote wrote: »

It's not £1.75 though.

It's £1.75 x number of pupils x number of days you let them off, plus the staff cost of chasing the money.

In this instance, on this day, for this child, it was £1.75

Maybe we're unusual here, the vast majority of parents pay on time. The odd one or two we sometimes need to remind/chase. It's just part and parcel of running a school. (We always get the money eventually.)

WestonDave

I feel the school are in the wrong here for a number of reasons and am glad my kids school don't operate in this way.

Firstly its not clear what these warnings were and when they were sent - sending for example 3 text messages during the morning in question when the parent is unable to add money to the account due to being in work doesn't create a situation where the child gets a meal.

Secondly whoever's fault it is, its not the childs, and frankly I don't want my kids anywhere near a school that would allow a kid to sit through afternoon school having had nothing to eat at lunchtime. That is a basic failure of a duty of care. Parents will occasionally forget something in the blizzard of notes we get sent home, and I'm sure there are plenty like me who sit down to do the online credit (don't get me started on these stupid online systems and their crashes at the start of term when people need to use it!), get distracted by something else and then have to remember at another point.

By all means if it becomes a recurrent issue then exclude the child from school or something so the parent has to take the child home next morning unless they've credited up the account or for persistent offenders inform social services that the childs needs are being neglected but as a one day issue where its clear its just a blip then some common sense and some basic humanity needs to be shown and that should override everything else.

Clearly the parents need to think about whether they should be leaving a float in the account etc and managing things better, but speaking personally, I'd be taking my kids away from a school that showed so little basic human kindness to my kids (that and getting the dinner lady a gift as a thank you!)

ILW

jackieblack wrote: »

Oh, I agree that it is the parent's fault.
But I don't think the school handled it well either.
And it's the child who has suffered.

Maybe a good time for the child to learn that it's parents are useless scumbags. Can then make allowances in later life.

bod1467

As WD notes ... it's not clear when or how the school tried to inform the child's parents of the money owing. All the article states is "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" ... this doesn't mean the parents received any messages.

Irn-Bru-Kid

"I was completely outraged. I hadn't had any teacher come to tell me there was an issue. I found it horrific."

A car crash is horrific, violence is horrific, but a kid not getting his spaghetti hoops at lunchtime?