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LAYTON — Tempers flared this week at a Davis County elementary school over lunch. It wasn’t what was being served that was the problem; it was how much time a child was given to eat it.
One mother claimed the principal threatened her with yearlong banishment from her daughters' school, but school official said she disrupted a class.
Parents claim kids threw away food and went hungry because they didn't have enough time to eat lunch. The principal at Ellison Park Elementary in Layton admits a new lunch schedule caused chaos the first day of school, but said the problem was being resolved.
The temper flare-up involved one parent. After Juanita Harris exchanged words with Principal Charles Johnson Thursday, she said he called her that night and told her he planned to serve her with a restraining order. As she arrived at her daughters’ school Friday she said, "If they forget their lunch or some homework or have an accident, no one will be able to help because I’m being barred from the school.”
It didn’t turn out quite that bad. In a closed-door meeting, Johnson told her she'll be cited for criminal trespass if she visits again without making an appointment.
“He said he’d rather not speak to me anymore,” she said, “so I need to go through Mrs. Bean, the assistant principal.”
All this drama and emotion resulted from concerns about lunchroom scheduling. It started Monday when Harris's first-grader came home from the first day of school crying.
"She told me that they made her throw her lunch away,” Harris recalled. “She said she didn't have time to finish her lunch and it was time to go back to class, and so she had to throw her lunch away."
The students were allowed about 18 to 20 minutes, eating in staggered shifts. But that includes time standing in line, washing hands and picking out food. The principal admitted some students may have had only five to 10 minutes to eat, and he got about 30 calls from parents that first day.
“My first-grader’s first day, she came home and snarfed down three hot dogs when she got home because she told me she was starving,” said Melanie Pearson, another concerned parent.
School officials said things have improved dramatically every day since Monday. They sharpened up procedures, gave the kids more help in the lunch room and added five minutes for younger kids.
They claim the problem is more or less resolved, but Harris doesn’t buy it. “When Melanie and I were here at lunch yesterday, we saw tray after tray, and kids with home lunches, tray after tray just full, being thrown in," she said.
The principal said he spoke with hundreds of satisfied students in the lunchroom Thursday and claimed just one of them was rushed into wasting half a hamburger.
After tempers heated up between Harris and the principal, she allegedly entered a classroom angrily and disrupted activities.
Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams said, "It's just like if someone runs onto a football field, they can be ejected. ... She crossed the line many times … Anytime a parent enters a school, they have to have permission to walk into a classroom."
Some of the facts of what happened are in dispute. Harris is considering contacting a lawyer.
“I feel like the big issue is the lack of constructive communication between the principal and I,” Harris said.
Email:hollenhorst@ksl.com
