Cafeteria worker fired after letting student take food for free gets offered job back

A high school cafeteria worker who was fired for allowing a student to take food without paying says she was offered her job back but will refuse to take it.

“They’re not doing it for me, they are doing it to save face,” Bonnie Kimball told CNN on Friday.

Cafe Services, the food service company that had employed her, said in a statement that it had decided to rehire Kimball and pay her for missed work. 

“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,” said Brian Stone, president of the company’s school division.{mosads}

Kimball was a lunchroom employee at Mascoma Valley Regional High School in New Hampshire. She was fired after her employer, Cafe Services, accused her of stealing an $8 lunch after she opted not to make the student pay for it.

Kimball, who had worked at the high school for more than four years, insisted her superiors told her to allow students to take food and instruct them they needed to add funds to their account, The Union Leader reported.

The student came in and paid the outstanding lunch debt the next morning but Kimball was fired later that day, she said. Two other lunchroom employees reportedly quit to protest her firing.

Kimball shared a copy of the termination letter she received from Cafe Services with the Union Leader. The letter from the company’s director of human resources noted that a district manager was on-site and “witnessed a student coming through the line with multiple food items you did not charge him for.”

“This [is a] violation of our Cash Handling Procedures, the Schools Charge Policy and Federal Regulation governing free meals,” it stated.

Mascoma Valley Regional School District officials told the outlet that it does not refuse to provide hungry children with lunch. 

“First and foremost, it is our goal to do right by our families, community, students and employees at the Mascoma Valley Regional School District,” Superintendent Amanda Isabelle said. “The events of these past few weeks and the feedback I have received from parents has given me considerable pause.”