A student in Florida was told she was 15 cents short when trying to pay for her lunch in the school cantine.
When she failed to muster up the cash, the cashier then threw the food away, according to Kimberley Aiken, the student’s mother.
The pupil is a sophomore at University High School in Orange City, Florida. Tuesday was her first day back at school, and it wasn’t exactly the best.
Kimberley explained:
She puts her food on the tray, gets to the front, gives her number to the cashier, and she says, ‘Well, you owe 15 cents,’. My daughter said she didn’t have any money, so the cashier took her food.
Aiken claimed as a result her daughter went the entire school day without eating.
She added:
You want to make sure that your kids are coming to school, and they’re going to be taken care of.
We already have all of the scary things happening, but the one thing you don’t want them to worry about is are they going to be able to eat when they go to lunch?
Aiken signed her daughter up for the high school’s free and reduced-cost lunch program, but it hasn’t taken effect yet. She told WKMG-TV the 15 cent deficit in the account must have carried over from the previous school year.
Spokesman for Volusia County Public Schools Roger Edgcomb, responded to the claims made by Aiken.
‘The school is always willing to work with students and families as needed,’ Edgcomb said. ‘The school will be contacting the family directly to help resolve this issue.’
Aiken’s daughter brought a quarter to school on Wednesday, to apparently make amends but the cantine worker told her she didn’t owe the school anything and that the situation and ‘shortage’ had been deal with.
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