A school in Utah is under serious fire after special needs student Sierra Prince was served pizza that was taken out of the bin.
Sierra has both learning difficulties and diabetes, and had been assigned a lunch worker to help her eat the correct food, but lunch room workers instead got it seriously wrong.
Sierra had taken enough insulin to cover the pizza that was being served in the lunch room that day, but when she arrived there was none left.
When she said she needed it because of her insulin, staff pulled a slice out of the bin and handed it to her.
Because of her disabilities, Sierra felt she had to do what school staff told her, and ate the pizza.
I didn’t really like the taste of it at all,” Sierra said. “It was nasty. I didn’t want to eat it, but I was dosed for pizza anyway because I’m diabetic. So, I had to eat it.”
This was only Sierra’s second day at the school.
When Sierra told her mother, Nicole Cordoba what happened, she was utterly appalled.
"How could that happen to a child? What adult makes that decision? It's common sense: We don't eat out of trash cans," Nicole said.
“Sierra can’t make her own decisions on what she eats,” She explained. “That’s why they hired the helper. Not only one person made the decision for Sierra to eat out of the trash, three adults did.”
Nicole has made an official complaint to the school, and the lunchroom manager has been placed on leave, while other staff undergo retraining.
The spokesperson for the school district, Kimberly Bird, stated that the incident occurred over confusion about Sierra’s diabetes, making them think pizza was the only thing she could eat.
“In this particular case, the lunch manager, not understanding everything, was told that pizza was what her insulin–that she had just received 15 minutes earlier, the [carbohydrate] count was for pizza,” she explained.
“And her not knowing the particulars thought that was the only thing she could have and therefore made a poor decision.”
For mum Nicole however, this explanation is not good enough.
“They should have called me and said, ‘Hey, guess what? Sierra is late to lunch. We’re out of pizza. We’re sorry. What can we do to make up these 30 [carbohydrates] that she’s been dosed for?” She said angrily.
Sierra has been so humiliated by the incident that she doesn’t want to go back to school.
“I want them to apologize to my daughter, I want them to make her feel better,” Nicole said. “It didn’t happen to me, I’m just her voice, I’m just her mom”
