School Offers Job Back To Lunch Lady Fired For Feeding Student With No Money & She Says No
A lunch lady named Bonnie Kimball of New Hampshire was fired after allowing a student to take food despite having a negative account balance, as The Inquisitr previously reported.
With multiple media outlets shining a spotlight on Mascoma Valley Regional High School, school officials and the food service company that employees the lunch staff reached out to Kimball with the hopes of rehiring her to work as a lunch lady once more.
According to CNN, Kimball shut down the job offer as she’s no longer interested in going back to work for the district as a lunch lady.
“They’re not doing it for me, they are doing it to save face,” Kimball said as she explained her decision to turn down the rehire.
For those who are unfamiliar with the original story, Kimball was fired from her place of employment because she allowed a student to take food despite having a balance of negative $8 in his account. Kimball explained that she softly told the boy to get money from his mother to fix his account the next day.
The food service company issued a statement on Friday that they not only agreed to offer Kimball her job back, but they were willing to pay her for all of the days she would have worked had she not been fired in the first place.
“We had a recent situation where an employee violated school and company policy in dealing with our food service and our district manager made a decision he felt was right at the time,” Brian Stone, president of the company’s school division, explained.
Lunchroom employee Bonnie Kimball says her boss told her, “Do you understand what you did was wrong? That was theft.” https://t.co/9cso5PvpcH
— FOX59 News (@FOX59) May 17, 2019
New Hampshire Union Leader reports that Kimball has been a member of the high schools lunch staff for more than four years. According to Bonnie, two of her co-workers resigned after learning why she was fired.
In separate statements, both the school district and the company confirmed they would evaluate and improve their policies moving forward so this type of situation doesn’t happen again.
During her statement on behalf of the school district, Superintendent Amanda Isabelle said she believed the situation serves as a good learning experience for all parties involved.
While schools within the district do not refuse to give food to students without money, they do have specific items available for that specific scenario. CNN reports it is unclear what food items the student took.
According to a separate piece by The Inquisitr, the decision to turn down the rehire doesn’t mean Bonnie will be without a job for long as others have been so inspired by her actions that they’ve reached out to her with other opportunities for employment.
