Parents’ group says woman owes lunch money

Mother claims daughters were sent outside at lunch

The mother of two Lansdowne School students is crying foul after they were forced to eat their lunch in the schoolyard due to a $90 debt owing to the school’s lunch program.

“The lunch lady took the girls outside to the door and left them there,” said Shana Harry, the girls’ mother.

“Just left them out by the entrance near (Northgate) mall, outside the school.”

And if the bill doesn’t get paid soon, the lunch program is threatening to call Child and Family Services to investigate the single mother for neglecting her daughters over the lunch hour.

The family moved into Winnipeg’s North End three months ago and have been taking the school bus since then to Lansdowne School, the closest French-immersion school in their area.

About three weeks ago, Harry came home from work only to be told by her daughters, Toriea, 10, and Aurora, 7, that their school’s lunch program had forced them to eat outside by themselves because she hadn’t paid.

Harry, says she barely scrapes by as it is, supporting herself and her daughters as a picture framer earning $9.50 an hour. She says she also gets no child support.

“To kick the girls out...to punish the kids because the parent can’t pay? That’s just wrong,” said Harry.

Winnipeg School Division communications officer Linda Wilson referred Canstar to the school principal.

Lansdowne principal Chantelle Deslauriers-Gray said due to privacy laws she couldn’t talk about the girls specifically.

But she said if anyone is having trouble paying they have options open to them, including volunteering in the program or paying the bill off in installments.

But Harry says she’s tried to volunteer.

“I talked to the program and they said they would hire me on my days off to help pay off my bill. That’s really hard for a single mother to do, but I agreed to do that.”

After filling out an application for the program, she said they never called her back.

Principal Deslauriers-Gray said she couldn’t confirm whether the advisory group has tried to contact Harry to volunteer.

The lunch program is run by the Lansdowne Advisory Group, which is made up of local parents. It does not include food.

Lansdowne school’s lunch program co-ordinator did not return a written message left for her at the school. The president of the school’s advisory group, Rosemarie Hrechkosy, did not return phone calls by press deadline.

But a form letter was sent to Harry stating the advisory group made a unanimous decision to not allow her daughters to continue with the program unless she paid them for the program from September to November of this year.

The form letter states if Harry doesn’t pay her bill immediately, the girls would be left at the front doors to be picked up at lunch time. If the girls aren’t picked up, the program would notify Child and Family Services.

“What am I supposed to do,” asked Harry, who said she doesn’t know anyone who could pick them up on her behalf.

“They don’t live close enough to walk home. I can’t go pick them up because I work. I’m trying to pay what I can but no one is talking to me,” she said, adding she never had to pay for a lunch program while her children went to school in another division.

Harry scraped together $5 to start paying off her bill to the program but is concerned the girls will be singled out again.

Linda Chernenkoff, assistant superintendent of Louis Riel School Division, says that in her division, principals are responsible for administration of the lunch program.

If a parent can’t pay the fee, they may plead their case to the principal and the principal may waive the fee.