Our children are not animals and should not be treated as such

Letter to the Editor:
Attn: Parents of Students at River view Elementary.
I am a parent of a four year old student in Senior Kindergarten at Riverview.
Last week Wednesday, my son came home after school and announced “Mom, you forgot to pack a spoon for my lunch and I had to eat my kraft diner with my hands!!” I almost laughed, saying “I’m sorry bud, but I’m sure you didn’t have to eat with your hands.”
The following morning, as I was packing lunches, I was a tad frazzled..with a power outage, a work phone call and screaming children...I had everything in the lunch bag (so I thought) zipped it up and put it in the backpack. After school, my son came home, whipped out a post it note that read “Jake needs to have a spoon in his lunch. We don’t have enough to hand out” and he said “I had to eat with my hands again” his lunch was Alphagettis. We all can imagine how hard it would be to eat alphagettis with our hands. I believed him. His shirt looked like a well used napkin.
I was, am, extremely angry about this. Later that evening,
I decided to e-mail the Rainy River District School Board so they were aware of the situation.
And I decided to go speak to the Principal on Friday when I was done work.
I made it to the school at about 11:05 Friday, and the Principal had assured me the situation had been taken care of. I must say, she was very apologetic and understanding. She handled me very well. But...the principal was not in lunchroom at the time.
Since this all happened, I have told everyone I know, and parents of other Riverview children have expressed to me their concerns about what goes on the Lunchroom at that school.
I will be attending the School Council meeting on Oct. 3rd, to express my concern.
AGAIN. Our children are not animals, and they shouldn’t be treated animal like.
Let me just say that Our taxes go to the Public school board, I support every fund-raiser, and every note that comes home asking for money, I send it. And my son can’t even use a spoon at school when mom forgets? It was my fault, not his.
Maybe Riverview should re-evaluate their ‘lunchroom staff.’ Although, they shouldn’t have a shortage of cutlery for kids anymore, I made a donation of plastic cutlery specifically for that situation, and I will continue to do so as it is needed.
After all...we don’t want our kids eating with their hands at lunchtime.
–Val Leininger
Rainy River, Ont.