<p>It’s the stamping, which violates your family’s privacy. It can also lead to your child being ridiculed by others. “My parents pay on time, what’s the matter with yours?” that kind of thing. So your convenience, which we all appreciate, is not as important here as the child’s situation within the school community. It’s also more convenient (easy, quick) for the school to hand-stamp the child than to pick up the phone and call parents about billing. They should make those calls privately by phone. I hope my explanation is helpful.</p>
<p>Because most people don’t think it is OK to shame children because of something their parents did. Period. And if you don’t think that by the upper years of elementary school, kids don’t know perfectly well what the symbol means, you don’t understand kids.</p>
<p>I would not want my kid’s hand stamped since the note in her back pack that said ‘Your lunch account is in the negative.’ worked fine and she has been out of elementary school for some time. Does the school not have online parent access (ours includes lunch account).</p>
<p>People don’t really care if you are a champion of the downtrodden or standing up for children against the powerful, despite the slant in the article that that’s the reason she was let go. They do care if you are some kind of constant thorn in their side, or a chronic complainer about your job. They also care if they are crooks and you get in their way. I’m not saying the firing was legitimate…just that this reported instance isn’t likely the underlying reason. It does make a good story though, and serves the dual purpose of reporting negatively on charter schools. </p>
<p>In any case, I was speaking from a common sense standpoint, and not from the standpoint of people who are covered by the various state labor rules. Maybe one of the charter trustees has a relative who would make a good principal. Who knows.</p>
<p>I also recall well from the school I taught: they knew that a handstamp, for whatever reason, caused a same-day discussion between parent and child (“What’s that stamp for?”). Other forms of communication, such as backpack notes, were untouched for a week or more. Even phoning parents is not as easy as it sounds, when cellphone numbers change often - sometimes a poverty impact – if parents don’t immediately update the school. So these are some convenience factors, from the school’s POV. </p>
<p>STILL, IMO they shouldn’t address those inconveniences by hand-stamping, because, as garland said, it draws the child into the adult business. Said differently, it leverages the child’s shame to get the parents to comply with paying up.</p>
<p>There are lots of parents – likely not the ones on CC – who do not open up emails from school, who don’t read the school newsletter, and who don’t log in to check their student’s on-line parent portal. Those of us who have been involved in school administration know this pretty well. </p>
<p>Like dadx, I’m sure that there’s more to this story. Hiring good school administrators is hard, and decisions to terminate administrators are never fun and are more often drawn out far longer than they should have been. I am not on this school board, but I have been on school boards and have been involved in these kinds of decisions before. I’d be shocked if the board in question hadn’t taken legal advice from an attorney well-versed in public school employment law. I’d also be really surprised if this was the result of a single incident; usually that’s only for something egregious like embezzlement, abuse or other one-and-done offenses.</p>
<p>The school is very limited in what they are able to disclose about personnel issues. Right now it is primarily the (former) principal’s story that is providing the news. If it goes to trial, more will come out. It is very frustrating for communities when people want to know, “what’s really going on,” and the board members are substantially constrained in what they can say. It is a tough position; I don’t envy any of them. I’ve been the one on the board when a popular staff member was terminated. It is frustrating as all get out that I couldn’t say, “If you could have seen the documentation I saw, you’d have done the same, and probably faster.” But, on the attorney’s advice, I said nothing. </p>
<p>I am so grateful to the Danes. We know several families where the families were smuggled out of Denmark. A few members jumped off the cattle cars…they were caught. But they survived.</p>
<p>We are VERY grateful. There are marriages to be done and lives to continue. And friends to celebrate life.</p>
<p>My father worked for the Department of Agriculture. The thing that made him so proud was the school lunch program and the Food Stamp Program.
He would have been disgusted and enraged about singling out children. I believe that (at least in his time) there would have been fines to pay and firing to be done.</p>
<p>arabab: Thanks for sharing your perspective of serving on a Board and having to make confidential termination decisions. I’ve served on other NFP boards before as well – and frankly got burned out due to the knee-jerk reaction of members who don’t have the full picture and question even the most mundane decisions.</p>
<p>Like you said, I’m sure the firing decision wasn’t taken without the consultation of their legal staff.</p>
<p>bevhills: “My father worked for the Department of Agriculture. The thing that made him so proud was the school lunch program and the Food Stamp Program.
He would have been disgusted and enraged about singling out children. I believe that (at least in his time) there would have been fines to pay and firing to be done.”</p>
<p>Unless he was involved in this program in the past ten years, he would not have been surprised at all. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s/early 2000’s (memory is going for details like this) that the Department of Agriculture implemented the rules that required the free or reduced lunch information to be implemented confidentially. Before that schools routinely (for decades) used lists for who was eligible for free/reduced lunch, or some gave out lunch tickets that free/reduced lunch kids used when other kids paid in cash. We had meetings at conferences back then to try and figure out how to handle it under the new rules. Lunch tickets were a problem because elementary school kids lose them. We didn’t have good access to computer technology for this at that point. </p>
<p>And, unless you’re arguing that the local newspaper story is wrong, apparently this school did NOT single out free or reduced lunch kids for the hand stamp. It went to any kid with a negative balance.</p>
<p>cafeteria management stamped the hands of all kids who had no money in their lunch accounts</p>
<p>while this sounds like it could be embarrassing for some, it’s probably the easiest way to give parents a “heads up” that it’s time to put more money in.</p>
<p>Because most people don’t think it is OK to shame children because of something their parents did. Period</p>
<p>I hope it’s not done THAT way. </p>
<p>Where I lived, the stamping was done when the child’s balance was getting very low (maybe too low to buy the NEXT meal or maybe below $5). it’s not supposed to be a shaming thing. think of it as the Warning Light that goes on in your car to remind you that you’re low on gas. Is that shaming?</p>
<p>She asked for the firing of the food services manager who continued hand-stamping after Principal told her to stop it. Isn’t that insubordinatation by the Food Services manager? </p>
<p>If the Board won’t back up its principal, how will the next principal govern the school?</p>
<p>Dollars to donuts (ha, that’s ironic), I’ll wager the food services manager is a longterm area resident with all kinds of local allegiences, but the principal was hired from outside the community. Whenever I see volunteer boards firing good people, it’s an insider v. outsider dynamic as a backstory.</p>
<p>^^
Perhaps food services personnel are District employees??</p>
<p>anyway…I wonder if there is a small error in the story. The stamping should happen when the acct is LOW…not once it’s is ZERO. You’re not supposed to get the warning once there’s no money at all…otherwise you have a child with a tray of food w/o means to pay.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that the stamp is done as a heads up warning. Of course, if a child continues to try to buy lunch w/ no money, then that’s an issue…but a different one.</p>
<p>If the stamping is to alert parents they need to put money in the lunch account, then why would kids who get free lunch get their hands stamped? That makes no sense. They don’t NEED money in their lunch accounts.</p>
<p>^^
Right…it’s not an issue for the free lunch kids.</p>
<p>Is this something that other kids would tease about? Nearly everybody’s acct goes low…then the reminder…and then the deposit. </p>
<p>If they want to avoid embarrassment, the stamp everyone’s hands when their accts go below say $15 (about a weeks worth of lunches)…then nearly every kid would get a stamp once in awhile. lol</p>
<p>"She asked for the firing of the food services manager who continued hand-stamping after Principal told her to stop it. Isn’t that insubordinatation by the Food Services manager? </p>
<p>If the Board won’t back up its principal, how will the next principal govern the school?</p>
<p>Dollars to donuts (ha, that’s ironic), I’ll wager the food services manager is a longterm area resident with all kinds of local allegiences, but the principal was hired from outside the community. Whenever I see volunteer boards firing good people, it’s an insider v. outsider dynamic as a backstory."</p>
<p>Food services managers don’t generally work for (chain of command) the principal. They may work in the cafeteria in the building, but it would be unusual for them to report to the principal in most school districts I’ve seen. This particular school is a K-12 campus with multiple principals, so even less likely that the elementary school principal was in a hire/fire position with respect to the food services manager.
(And being in Boulder County, they’re a whole lot more likely to be serving organic veggies than donuts. ;))</p>
– who do not open up emails from school, who don’t read the school newsletter, and who don’t log in to check their student’s on-line parent portal. Those of us who have been involved in school administration know this pretty well. </p>