Cafeteria staff sacked over free lunch refuses job reinstatement

CONCORD, 19 May 2019: 

Bonnie Kimball, who was fired on April 4 from Mascoma Valley Regional High School – where she had worked for more than four years – has refused the offer to be rehired after the reason for her sacking hit headlines.

“They’re not doing it for me, they are doing it to save face,” said Kimball, after she let a student take some lunch items for free and the boy paid the US$8 tab the next morning.

She reportedly believes she was only offered her job back so that the company “could keep its contract” with the school district.

“His family is very well known in this town and I can guarantee that if I called his mother, she would have come right in and paid the bill. But I didn’t want to get her out of work.

“I know they would have brought the money the next day. The bill was going to get paid.”

Kimball also said another two cafeteria staff had quit in support after her sacking by Fresh Picks Café, a division of Café Services Inc.

Meanwhile, the school district is reviewing the lunch policy – insisting it does not “refuse to provide food to a hungry child who cannot afford to pay.”

School officials noted the free lunches policy does not include ice cream bars, sports drinks and chips that have a “high unit cost to the district and are not viewed as essential nutrition”.

Also read: School cafeteria worker fired for letting student get free lunch