First it started out as a prank, then it grew into a protest of the size of their lunches when 29 students from Readington Middle School paid for their lunches entirely with pennies. The school, not being too enthused with receiving 6,000 coins as payment for 29 lunches, issued all 29 students 2 days of detention for their prank turned protest.
Forgive me, but the last time that I checked the penny was still legal tender in the United States. So what if a few lunch ladies were inconvenienced by counting out pennies, according to the US Treasury, they are legal US funds and they must be accepted. Punishing these students is excessive. Had they attempted to pay in Canadian Dollars, Mexican Pesos, or Euros, that would have been a problem worthy of punishment. But using pennies? Give me a break.
The school has made an attempt to justify these detentions…
“There are ways to express yourself that are not disruptive to other kids and disrespectful to staff,” said Readington Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jorden Schiff.
This is a lazy educator’s BS explanation for his storm trooper type tactics. These kids did nothing wrong. They used the only means available to them to protest small portion sizes. Sure, I admit, that this started out as a prank. One that inconvenienced employees of the school system. However, if this were any other kind of retail exchange, the seller would have no choice but to accept the money paid. There would be no disciplinary action taken against any other kind of buyer prank or not.
If my child would have been issued a detention for doing this, they would be skipping the detention to force a suspension so that I could take the Superintendent of Schools, each member of the school board, and the Principal to court and let them see what disciplinary action is truly like in the US.
Update:
Just thought of the perfect slogan for that prank turned protest…
If you are going to nickel and dime us, we’ll penny you.
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You can’t compare this to any other merchant — you see if it’s another merchant, the merchant IS completely free to tell you to get lost — and you are completely free to go to their competition to complete your transaction.
However, with government, there IS not competition. You CANNOT go somewhere else. So if government refuses your transaction, there is literally nothing you can do but protest. If I were the parents of these kids, I would indeed encourage them to continue paying in pennies until the school threw them out (which the school would never do because they’d lose money if they did.)
If I were a kid at this school I would organize a different protest. I would organize so that no one bought any food in the cafeteria. All kids could bring a lunch on the designated protest days.
Then there would be no disruptions or long lines to worry about.
If I were the parent and my child was suspended I might call the treasury department to investigate this refusal to take US currency…
As a student in this school, we were protesting and we still are. We brown bagged last Friday and bought nothing. And, it was more than just 29 students. Half the grade did it. Only 29 were caught.