(PCM) The parents of a Gardendale Elementary School third-grader are outraged after their son arrived home from school with quite an embarrassing stamp on his arm. The boy’s father Jon Bivens claims that at first glance he assumed the smiley face ink stamp on his son’s arm was in praise for doing something good, however upon closer examination, he discovered that the ink stamp also included the text “I need lunch money!” under the smiley.
Bivens was infuriated, as he feels it was incredibly unprofessional of the school administrators to allow his child to be “branded” with such an embarrassing message and possibly lead to ridicule from his son’s classmates. He feels his son was unfairly bullied and shamed by the school and he demands answers.
Bivens goes on to say that he feels the school could have handled the situation better with perhaps a letter or even a phone call home, but placing a stamp on his child’s arm is completely insulting. Biven’s claims it makes an unfair assumption about his family’s social standing as well. As it turns out his son didn’t even need lunch money, as there was still $1.38 left in his account and since it was the last week of school and his son usually only used the lunch money to buy treats because he generally always brings his lunch from home, his father decided not to refill the account.
The school principal Laura Ware attempted to explain the incident by saying that the staff of the cafeteria often times uses various methods to let families know when their child’s cafeteria account is running low such as call or email, but does say they use both ink stamps and stickers as well.
Bivens claims he never received a phone call or an email and only came home to find his son “branded” with the notification. What do you think? Did the school take it too far?
