SCHOOL LUNCH: Bad experience lamented

    I am writing this letter to express my total astonishment with the way one of the lunch ladies at Timberlake Junior High treated my son.

    I pay in advance for my kids to have lunches at school on the prepayment plan which is a wonderful plan, very convenient for families. Occasionally my kids' accounts get down towards zero but I always replenish the funds before they run out and my kids get to eat. We thought we had it figured out to have enough money through the last day of school but somehow my eighth grader’s account got used up right before the last day.

    My son had his normal tray of food on Wednesday June 9 and one of the lunch ladies at the school took the tray of food from my son, told him he didn't have anymore money and threw it in the trash.

    Since he has always had money, never charged a lunch the whole year, why couldn't she have just let him eat and let him bring the .40 cents the next day? Yes, FORTY cents! Aren't we all about feeding the children so that they can function better in school?

  My son is not one to question adults so he just went about his business and didn't eat but I want people to know that this woman should not be working with children if this is how she is going to treat them.

    At other times she double charged my kids. They would give her cash for something extra and she would also charge the account so they paid for it twice. I keep track of this and when it was brought to her attention, she would fix it but if I had not been monitoring the account it would have gone unnoticed. How many other people has this happened to?

    I am just a concerned parent who feels that all kids should be able to eat, and when this sort of thing happens I have to speak out. No growing, hungry child should have perfectly good food thrown away in front of them.

    TERI PARKER

    Athol