• Hubi@feddit.org
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    10 days ago

    Please come back when you can afford to make a purchase. Your kids are starving. Carl’s Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl’s Jr.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
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    10 days ago

    The district says that it is trying to collect more than $20,000, and that other methods to get parents to pay have not been successful. Four parents owe at least $450 apiece. The letter claims the unpaid bills could lead to dependency hearings and removal of their children for not providing them with food. “You can be sent to dependency court for neglecting your child’s right to food. The result may be your child being taken from your home and placed in foster care,” the letter read. After complaints, district officials announced they plan to send out a less threatening letter next week. Luzerne County’s manager and child welfare agency director have written the superintendent, insisting the district stop making what they call false claims. Their letter calls the district’s actions troubling and a misrepresentation of how the Children and Youth Services Department and its foster care program operate. Wyoming Valley West’s lawyer, Charles Coslett, said he did not consider the letters to be threatening. “Hopefully, that gets their attention and it certainly did, didn’t it? I mean, if you think about it, you’re here this morning because some parents cried foul because he or she doesn’t want to pay a debt attributed to feeding their kids. How shameful,” Coslett told WYOU-TV.

    What a lovely person this Charles Coslett, attorney at law, is!

    https://www.10tv.com/article/news/nation-world/kids-could-end-foster-care-over-lunch-debt-school-district-warns-parents-2019-jul/530-1952542e-0f2c-4b3a-b6f0-a32de5dbce58

    • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      because he or she doesn’t want to pay a debt attributed to feeding their kids.

      $450 is like two trips to the grocery store these days, or even less for a big family. Maybe the parents aren’t paying the school bill because they did spend the money on food. Everything’s expensive as hell.

      How shameful

      Yes, threatening parents for being poor in an unaffordable country without social safety nets is shameful.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    Didn’t pay your Minch money? Then the state will now spend thousands over thousands of dollars to ruin your child’s life!

    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Seriously fucked up. They could feed all those kids for free for a fraction of what it would cost the state to forcibly put them in foster care.

      I’m always reminded that the cruelty IS the point.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        They could feed all the children for free for the cost of forcibly taking one child away.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        10 days ago

        They’re going to pay those other parents a stipend. Pay a case worker and their manager, pay an attorney. Those case workers are already bruised and battered nearly to death.

    • Bakkoda@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Imagine a child who grew up in lunch debt. Constantly aware of how awful their life is. Now take a portion of them at 18, give them training and weapons and send them to some country they grew up being told is bad and even responsible for their suffering. Tada.

      • JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 days ago

        My mom worked full-time as a lunch lady, my dad full-time as a janitor. We had reduced lunch ($.40) and once got a letter for -.$20 with a $.34 stamp.

    • Formfiller@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Maybe we should do what Israel does and give people a monthly $260 per child payment until the child turns 18? I mean we pay for it there so why not implement it here?

    • kablez@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Yes, but it often works the other way. I’ve gone to school in Asia, Europe and Australia. IME lunch ladies will let some kids tick food up when they lack the funds.

      Some kids pay it back, but I know for a fact many come from families who lack the means and they let it slide.

      Ironic seeing a country like the USA so obsessed with Jesus being as far from his teachings as you can go.

  • Bazell@lemmy.zip
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    10 days ago

    I cannot explain how, but I feel that this is just another start of great scheme on how to make Epstein’s island 2.0.

    • paul@lemmy.org
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      10 days ago

      I can explain: the US government is filled with people connected to Epstein’s island. People who either engaged in pedophillia or are completely fine with it. They’ve got an unlimited supply of children from the immigrants they’re abducting off the streets. America is an evil country.

    • Willoughby@piefed.world
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      10 days ago

      We saw what our owners(until proven otherwise) do when they don’t want to be found out.

      What kind of sick shit do you think they’re doing right now?

  • Just_Lyin@lemmy.org
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    10 days ago

    And if it’s like my kid’s school they just let them charge as much cake as they want to eat to their school account. If you tell them not to allow that they’ll tell you that they can’t not give children food. Motherfuckers also got a slushy machine.

  • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    So instead of free lunch we will take and house your kids and feed them and deprive them of family. Which will cost 100x more and is 10000x more evil than making kids pay for lunch

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    10 days ago

    Meahwhile, Some counties in Maryland have made school lunches free for all kids.

    • nocturne@slrpnk.net
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      10 days ago

      Short of paying for the entire meal program, it may not be possible. Some districts do not allow people to pay for meals/debt that is not their own.

      When my youngest two kids were in elementary school I used to go eat lunch with them. One of the boys in my son’s class had too much debt and they would not give him food. I tried to pay his debt ($20ish) and they would not let me, so I tried to pay for his meal, not allowed. So we went and sat down at the table and I gave him a twenty. The lunch lady accepted it, but gave me a hassle about it. I told her he found it in his pocket while we were eating.

      • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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        10 days ago

        That’s really weird. Also are you allowed to just go eat with your children at school or you need some kind of special forms and access? They can’t just let a bunch of adults into the school randomly.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          Wild notion here for most USAnites. In almost all of the world, the parents can indeed just walk into the school and see what is up with their kids, part of the school’s job is to know who are the parents to which kids. It’s part of institutional transparency and parental rights. My nephew’s schools (admittedly, in Europe) allows a family lunch day a week, when parents can enter the cafeteria and eat with their kids unannounced or simply watch what they are being served.

        • nocturne@slrpnk.net
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          10 days ago

          I had to go into the office and check in each time. They have it on file who my kids are. Only parents were allowed. So, you could not walk in off the street, having no kids at the school, and eat lunch.

          I did this at 3 different schools in 2 different states.