School Punishes Boy For Sharing His Lunch with Hungry Friend
A pull-your-hair-out school discipline story is making the rounds: Weaverville Elementary School in California punished a 13-year-old boy who committed the crime of sharing his lunch with a friend.
Eighth-grader Kyle Bradford's act of charity and kindness is strictly prohibited under school policy because one student may be allergic to another student's food. KRCTV reports:
The policies set by the district say that students can have allergies that another student may not be aware of.
Tom Barnett, the Superintendent of the Trinity Alps Unified School District says that hygiene issues also come into play when banning students from sharing meals.
"We have a policy that prohibits students from exchanging meals. Of course if students are concerned about other students not having enough to eat we would definitely want to consider that, but because of safety and liability we cannot allow students to actually exchange meals," said Barnett.
I can understand the need to consider students' allergies, but is it really necessary to punish the boy? Couldn't a teacher have simply said, "That was kind of you, Kyle, but here is why we can't let students share meals," and left it at that? Not in the police state that is modern schooling, it seems.