Throwing Away School Lunches – A Form of School Bullying

According to a news article published by FoxNews.com, a New Jersey mother has accused her local elementary school, in Galloway Township, N.J., of bullying her 10 year old son. The mother claims that the school personnel has “repeatedly taken her child’s lunch and thrown it away.” The mother acknowledges that her son’s lunch account had “become delinquent” due to unpaid cafeteria balances, however, the mother attributes the situation on her son’s “occasional failure to relay notes and messages on the issue.” According to the article, the child suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome.  Recently, a similar incident occurred at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to the article school officials in Uintah Elementary School “replaced […] student’s $2 lunches with fruit and milk […] because of insufficient or negative balances.” The father of an 11 year old student whose lunch was taken away by Uintah school officials believes that “young children [should not] be punished or humiliated for something the parents […] need to clear up.” Similarly, the N.J. mother expressed her belief that the issue should remain “between the parents and the cafeteria […not] between the child and the lunch lady.” 

            This article reveals how arbitrary the definition of bullying can be. Some people would argue that school officials have no right to deprive children of their school lunches and in the process humiliate them. However, other individuals would argue that “rules are rules”, and as a result, school officials have the right to deny and deprive students of their school lunches if their parents fail to pay the school lunch balances. In my opinion this scenario is an excellent example of a bullying scenario that contradicts a common assumption. Usually school officials are thought as having students’ best interests in mind. However, this article is proof that the aforementioned assumption is not always the case. Is it really in the students’ best interests to deprive them of their school lunches over fees their parents have failed to pay? What lesson are students supposed to learn, pay or be humiliated?