<p>A former principal at a charter elementary school in Colorado said that she was fired last year after she tried to force school officials to stop marking the hands of children who could not afford to buy lunch for full price in the cafeteria.</p>
<p>Interesting story–they deny she was fired over that, but do not deny the hands-stamping. Who in their right mind could think that was an okay thing to do???</p>
<p>Reading between lines, to me it sounded like the food services manager wanted to increase speed at the cash register, so instituted the hand-stamping. That kind of tonedeaf manager could have had many other conflicts with a good-and-decent Principal, so “toxic environment” and Principal back-stabbing ensues. </p>
<p>There are other ways! At the poverty K-2 public school (700 kids) where I taught, in September every child recited their first and last name name at the cash register. Cashiers had a hyper-confidential list of eligible children behind the register. By October, they knew kids by face, but the reciting continued. Students enterng midyear were introduced personally to food services. Classrooms of kids were called together to line up, which helped the cashiers learn to recognize kids by name. </p>
<p>For a moment, I thought the principal should have insisted ALL kids get hand-stamped, like Denmark in WWII. When the Nazis demanded a yellow Jewish star to identify the oppressed minority, all Danish citizens responded by sewing those onto their outer garments.</p>
<p>In my school, each kid has a specific lunch number that allows them to buy lunch or check their grades online etc. When they type in their number, the cashiers can see the children’s balance or free or reduced lunched status.</p>
<p>The story being reported locally is that the cafeteria management stamped the hands of all kids who had no money in their lunch accounts, not simply those who had free/reduced lunch, and that this is common practice at many schools in the state. </p>
<p>That is quite different than the thread title seems to indicate.</p>
<p>We had a similar system in high school, which resulted in routine charges to my kid’s account for things not taken by the kid.</p>
<p>I think this is a tempest in a teapot, and that there must be other reasons for terminating this principal (not necessarily legitimate reasons, but unless you behave like a jerk in pushing your position, you don’t get fired over this).</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions - great story about Denmark in WWII, but it never happened.</p>
<p>What the Danes did was even better than the story, they smuggled almost everyone out to Sweden and safety. I read a book about it - the smuggling of 7,000 people out of the country right under the Nazi’s noses is incredible.</p>
<p>The two school districts my kids attended have the same practice. As soon as the kid’s account dips below certain amount (which the parent can set) the hand gets stamped. This practice stops at HS, where it is assumed that the kids can communicate to their parents that they are out of money.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with this. Even though I can look up my kids’ lunch accounts online, it is much more convenient to me to see the stamp.</p>
<p>I was not born here, so I was not familiar how everything works in US schools when my kids started attending them. Hence the following story.</p>
<p>When my first-born started kindergarten at some point he started to come home with a stamp on his hand every day (smiley face). I thought that he was being rewarded by his teacher for his good behavior or something like that. That continued until I received a phone call from school asking me if I want to fill out free lunch application or if I could pay the negative balance he accumulated. My son never told me anything and I think it was before you could look up this information on-line.</p>
<p>^Many Thanks, dadinator! Very informative Snopes correction about Denmark. So everyone actually wearing yellow stars was a legend that describes the Danish spirit or the King’s. Instead, a smaller percentage of Danes actually saved 90 percent of their Jewish population from death, by boat-smuggling them to Sweden. I can live with that!</p>
<p>And gee, somehow in the days before online–schools were able to communicate with parents about all sorts of things without drawing on the kid to do so.</p>
<p>Lerkin: “I think that’s even worse!” (referring to all students with negative balances getting a hand stamp, not specifically students eligible for free/reduced lunch)</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>The rules prohibit singling out free/reduced lunch kids, but (according to the story in the local paper) that wasn’t what happened here, and it is what is done in many school districts in the state. And, no kid goes away hungry. Anybody without lunch money gets a cheese sandwich. (It used to be Peanut Butter & Jelly before there were so many issues with peanut allergies – I can remember kids requesting the PB&J sandwich preferentially to the icky hot lunch food. I don’t know how they feel about grilled cheese.)</p>
<p>Most schools can’t afford to run large negative balances in the lunch account. Usually a student gets some number (or dollar amount) of meals with a negative balance in their account, but it isn’t unlimited.</p>
<p>(I can’t speak at all to what happens at THIS specific school, but this is what commonly happens at OTHER schools – charter or not – around this state.)</p>