In all families, mornings are usually crazy busy. Parents are juggling waking up children, making breakfast, packing lunches, packing backpacks, preparing items for after school activities and more. Once the morning rush is over, we as parents, send our children off to school with the assumption that the school employees will take care of our children as we would. So when we encounter a story about school employees treating our children less than we expect them too, it enrages all parents everywhere. We should never have to worry that our children are being treated unfairly by other adults that they trust. But what happens when we discover that the school employees are not taking care of our children like they are expected to?

For the family of students that attend school in the Avon Community School District have recently experienced something that no family should ever have to go through. The young son of Amy Whittaker, ran off to school one day in December, without his lunch or lunch money. However, he did not worry because he knew the school would help him out in his time of need. Unfortunately, this is not how his day went down. During lunch time, the cafeteria worker handed the young boy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich full of gray mold. Upon this discovery, he sent a photo to his mother’s cell phone and she immediately took action. His mother immediately went to the Facebook social app in order to inform others about what happened. The mother’s argument was that her son’s sandwich was so encased in mold that it was easily seen through the bag that it was contained in. She was relieved that her son had noticed the mold before he took a bite, but it is concerning that a younger student could have received this sandwich and may not have noticed the mold before consuming the sandwich. Amy Whittaker claims that her son took the sandwich back up to the cafeteria workers in order to receive a replacement, that were not pleasant to the student and the were not happy to replace the sandwich. Her son is no longer comfortable with asking the school employees for food. Once the young boy arrived home, he shared information with his mother about a friend of his being in the same situation a few weeks before this occurrence.

The Avon Community School Corporation has been in communications with the Whittaker family and has expressed their apologizes to the families that have experienced these issues with the cafeteria service. They claim that they are working hard to focus on fixing any situations that may arise in the future. However, it is unknown whether or not the situation will be remedied or not. How can we ensure that things are getting better? It is impossible for anyone to know if this situation is remedied unless every student and every parent is diligent in ensuring that every inch of their food is safe to eat. How do we handle the situation and how do we make sure that things get fixed when problems do arise? It is important for every person, parent or not, to remain diligent in ensuring that they are properly doing their jobs with the goal of keeping all of the students safe in the school environment. We send our children to school in the assumption that they are being taken care of, it is time that we understand that it takes focus and hard work in order to make sure that we are caring for everyone properly and how we are expected to.