29 Readington Middle School students earned two days detention after paying for their lunch with pennies. School administrators took the penny treatment a sign of disrespect towards cafeteria workers, who eventually collected 5,800 pennies.
“At first it started out as a joke, then everyone else started saying we’re protesting against like how short our lunch is,” student Alyssa Concannon said.Several lunch ladies who had to do the counting didn’t think it was funny, even though some of the students put the coins in rolls. They’re not authorized to put in their two cents but school officials say they felt disrespected and other students didn’t get to eat lunch.
“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.
Eighth grader Jenny Hunt said in hindsight, the prank may have been a bad idea.
“Maybe we should have thought before we did it,” Hunt said.
Student Sarah Henschel added: “There was no rule in the rulebook about it. It was just unfair. It’s U.S. currency.”
Students Punished After Buying Lunch With Pennies [CBS]
PREVIOUSLY: The Treasury Secretary Hates The Penny. Do You?
(Photo: Getty)
More From Consumerist
-
Middle-Income Parents Will Pay $8,000 More To Raise Kids Born In 2011 Than In 2010
-
Enjoy That Chipotle Burrito While It’s Cheap(er): Prices Might Be Going Up This Year
-
Staples Enforces Loss Leader Limits, Makes Teachers Sad
-
New Zealanders Will Be Able To Buy Bilbo & Gandalf Stamps With ‘Hobbit’ Legal Tender
-
Hope No One Minds If I Just Plunk Down 62,000 Pennies To Pay Off This Mortgage
If it’s so disruptive, why didn’t the school’s cafeteria just stop taking pennies?
@Sam: You Hit the nail on the head. As supreme court justice Abe Fortas said, “neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate”
…..Woops. To late. The megalomaniacal teachers will make sure that never happens.
It looks like the school administrators need a lesson in personal responsibility. The students presented the pennies as payment for their lunch. The cafeteria worker chose to accept the pennies as payment and the burden of counting the pennies.
Furthermore, the penny is official United States Currency and a symbol of our country. It’s Anti-American for the school administration to attach a negative connotation to any denomination of United States currency. The school adminsitration appears to be part of the left wing hate America crowd.
@soulman901: GETTY IMAGES!!
Ah, the luxury of the 50 minute lunch!!
Who to sit with? Who to avoid? Who to be seen talking to? Who to give your extra tots: future friend or political ally? When will that cute boy come over to talk to me? Why is he talking to HER? I hate that boy!
That and throwing away your entire tray because it’s not cool to be seen actually EATING your your lunch.
‘that’s the third independent thought alarm this afternoon’.
he he. When I was in high school, we weren’t allowed to pay with anything higher than a ten. But the ATM machines only spit out twenties. So every once in a while you’d only have a twenty and have to explain it to the cashier who would always take it after complaining for a minute. The funny part. Every time I got more than $20 in change. Typically you’d get a ten, 2 fives and a bunch of ones. It made me think that the reason for this rule is that the cashiers couldn’t compute the change that high. And yes, they had electronic cash registers.
at least they didn’t try to pay with $2 bills.
the principle would have probably called the cops.
[www.snopes.com]
My 7 year old never gets to finish his lunch because they are just too short. If the school put my kids in detention for paying with pennies they would find a very angry parent at their door.
“At first it started out as a joke, then everyone else started saying we’re protesting against like how short our lunch is,” student Alyssa Concannon said.”
This kid didn’t even know WHY she was handing the staff pennies… she just did it along with everyone else.
The kids were being dicks. This resulted in the employees having to spend a lot of time counting pennies and unable to complain, kids who had to wait in line and not having time to actually eat.
But then again, kids (and a lot of adults) don’[t think about the other people who have to deal with their unnecessary crap)
@MustyBuckets: exactly
We get about 35 minutes to eat but we are called up by table to get in line. It’s like that so there isn’t a huge crowd up getting food. But, there are 30 tables and if you in the last 5-10, you start eating by the time everyone else is finished, and have almost no time. It’s okay though, because they are always understocked and if you go up late all of the non-diarrhea-inducing food has been picked over and you are left with a freaking skim milk and low-fat Doritos.
This may be partially politically motivated… the detention part anyway. NJ has been looking to mandate the use of debit cards for school lunches. Several districts have them, not sure if any “require” yet.
They claim it’s to ensure safety (stealing lunch money), and so parents can audit what their kids eat.
Reality: forcing families to give larger sums of money in advance means the interest that money gets in a bank account belongs to the district. They desperately needed since school boards in NJ often make insane salary (despite being a part time gig for some).
So I wouldn’t be surprised if they used this as a way to push for change. They’ll promote it as a way to “pay faster”.
Modern day Breakfast Club!
@Arrngrim: says: “All this “that’s wrong of them not to accept the pennies” and “omg they only get 20 minutes!” talk merely reinforces the PROBLEM these deliquent children caused.
Guess what, more children COULDN’T even EAT during this fiasco they caused. Why? Because during 20 minutes, they wasted more time causing a disturbance.
I give the school kudo’s for taking this action, too many parents are “Omg, you can’t do that to my child”, and then they are raised to be the worst excuse of a human being there is.
I’m not ancient, but I received my just desserts as a child when I transgressed. I feel it made me a better person, I respect others until they prove they are unworthy.
Children need to fear the repercussions of their actions if they are to grow and develop into a good addition to our society.
Frankly, IMHO, we need Capital Punishment in our schools.
#1 — Good for those kids! Are we trying to train them to be receipt showing sheep at the Best Buy? I agree that we should teach kids to be responsible for their actions. But I think we’re talking about things like stealing or breaking a window, not handing pennies to the cafeteria workers. Isn’t US currency for all debts public and private?
To be fair, I looked on the US Treasury website and found this:
I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn’t this illegal?
The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled “Legal tender,” which states: “United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.”
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
#2 – Maybe the kids could stage a revolution on Chicken Finger Day!
#3 – I hope you mean Corporal Punishment.
The penny is valid currency. Period. IF they don’t want to accept the penny, take it up with the federal government.
Ok well since it is NOT healthy to eat fast
And they teach you this in school so these kids put 2 and 2 to together and wanted to do something about it.
All the Doctors should get together and submit a bill to legislation to increase lunch time. While where @ it child protective services should step in as well as it has to do with the childs well being after all they are growing kinds and need there nutrition. And has anyone ever thought that since they do not have enough time to eat all of their lunch that they just eat the deserts and the sugery foods leeding to a suger high and restlessness in the first class after lunch making harder on all of the teachers?? not to mention this type of eating can lead to obesity?? Not to mention eating fast could cause ulsers at a young age.
Is this not the time when they need their nutrition.
I think it is time to think of the well being and not how many hours they sit in the classroom.
Now here is the soulution take 5 minutes from each class which their is 6 that would add 30 mins making it a hour lunch. which would also give them time to digest food before going to class and perhaps during this time they could do some of there work that they did not finish in class or perhaps read a chapter or 2 of their studies. And acually add back the time took as they would still be learning.
Feal free to send this comint to Congress.
FYI: this site does not like Opera web browser
hurrah for you,edrebber, i was about to say just about the same thing
Out here in the business world, I had a customer who was short on $ and needed a part. He paid with his change stash. $66 in change, maybe half of that amount in pennies. It took a single clerk most of an to count and roll his change and complete the transaction.
The customer thought it was funny.
The customers standing in line behind him did not.
I can just imagine what happened in the school lunch line. Those kids are lucky to get detention. The school bully was waiting for them in the playground for the proper beatdown that they deserved.
Guess what genius, the cashier has to count the coins to prevent their till from being short. You just made more work for the underpaid. How about you go to a bank or a change machine?
So the children weren’t given warnings, but just flat out detention? Sounds like these kids learned a valuable lesson: in life, there are complete assholes (e.g. the school administration who gave them detention) who will fuck you up just because they are on a power trip and have to show others “who the boss is.”
When they are older, these kids won’t be harassed by store employees for not showing a receipt on exit, nor will they be tazed by a police officer because they didn’t keep their eyes on the ground when they were being spoken to. No, these kids will learn that by being good little sheep, they can avoid the petty and malicious punishments dreamed up by those with a little bit of power.
Public schools are intended to produce obedience not responsible, intelligent citizens.
Sheep? You people seriously think too much like “The Matrix”. This wasn’t about them being good little sheep, this was about the little brats causing trouble for hard-working, low paid employee’s, AND the other poor little brats behind them who DIDN’T get to eat that day.
As others posted, probably the entire lot of the mouth-breathers were only following along because they thought it “was funny” and “a joke”, only when they received well-deserved punishment for their idiotic actions did it suddenly become “a petition against the terrible lunch times”.
Again, I reiterate, I know the difference between corporal and capital, scroll back up, I did not typo.
From the article, we know several things.
1) The lunches are short, possibly 20 minutes not counting time waiting in line.
2) One student decides it would be funny to pay with pennies, inconveniencing the lunch staff and every student in line behind him.
3) The ~joke~ is repeated on subsequent days by a growing number of students.
4) There were no complaints about the short lunch prior to detention, at which point the word ‘protest’ is retroactively applied.
Many of the commenters here seem to be misrepresenting the facts. I appreciate the idea of protesting injustices, but that’s not what happened here. There was no ‘protest’… just a bunch of students who thought it would be funny to be jerks. The detention is very appropriate for their actions. They need to learn that it’s ok to complain about school policies, but not in a way that screws up the system for everyone in line behind them.
@coold8: Look at the post above. Businesses don’t have to take any currency in any amount you hand them.
There’s actually a law against using excessive coins for a purchase. Let me see if I can lookup that law. Something similar happened when some guy tried to pay a Best Buy purchase with all $2 bills, but fortunately, he was using bills instead of coins.
I faced the ungodly short lunchtime when I entered high school way back in 1978. I found a unique way to deal with it: I simply ate a huge breakfast, skipped lunch, then ate when I got home from school. It didn’t take long to train my body to regard this as the norm and not get hungry. All the drugs helped
@Faerie: Oh I cant agree more. The lunch time at my son’s grade school is only 12 minutes. It’s insane. These kids don’t deserve detention, they deserve a medal.
Sick part about my son’s school… they added an hour onto the school day and they STILL only have 12 minutes to eat.
This isn’t the greatest “protest” and I don’t doubt that these kids were just fucking around and later decided to make it a protest on an issue they hadn’t even previously brought up to administration. They’re what, 12? Forgive them for not thinking things through very clearly or effectively at that age.
This article brings up so many of the issues currently plaguing education, which is a giant bureaucratic mess at the moment. No Child Left Behind is so hated among people who study educational policy it’s basically off-limits as an essay/discussion topic because it’s all we’d ever talk about. It’s a horrible system.
And although current thought is definitely moving more towards democratic classrooms and de-emphasizing control over allowing students to learn and taking a more holistic view towards education – there is still a huge emphasis on very strict classroom management. The army still epitomizes what many people in education feel would be perfect classroom behavior.
Attitude is really the key here. If the kids were nice while paying that way, and they hadn’t previously been told to stop doing it, I can’t see how it is possibly disrespectful. And, sure, it was “disruptive”, but so many other things that are or should be allowed are too. [questioning the teacher, reading slowly, looking different]. People need to be a little less sensitive and “assume good faith” first.
Anyway, going against the grain and drawing attention to wrongs has always involved personal sacrifice. I just hope these kids don’t get their spirits squashed by this experience. We need more heros.
@picantel: And what if your child had even less time to eat because he/she was stuck behind the students paying in pennies?
Okay, it wasn’t about legality, but I did find this: [treasury.gov]
@Arrngrim: So, murdering children is okay with you? I’d call you a name but why bother, you’ve already shown who you are.
For those thinking about responding that the school is a public institution and the cafeteria being part of this institution needs to all currencies, I found this comment on another thread:
iamemg:
This is outrageous… pennies are U.S. currency after all! Why the hell is the school penalizing students for paying with them? Stupid school administrators really need to take another look at their actions and give students a voice..student need more time to eat lunch. I recently switched high schools from a school with a 20-minute lunch period to a school with a 50-minute lunch period and I will tell you, it is so much better.
I’m quite appalled at a lot of the comments I’m seeing on here, particularly the ones referring to the CHILDREN in derogatory and abusive names. They are CHILDREN and they found an interesting way to protest something that they didn’t like; so what? I suppose we should ban any freedom of expression that we find “inconvenient.” I seriously hope that any of the people on here calling them (11-13 year-olds, mind you) “bitches” and advocating excessive punishment never have kids themselves before resolving their own psychological issues that are so abundantly evident.
@Arrngrim: You want to kill middle schoolers? Capital Punsihment = Death, Corporal Punishment = Spanking and the like.
@ethos, and others: The whole point here is that the kids were expressing their right to free speech. Tinker vs. Des Moines set the precedent that school punishments (like suspensions and detention) in response to these sorts of protests are restrictions on free speech. Unfortunately, most people seem to say that this is just a helicopter parent bothering the school. Today, schools have restricted the rights of their students too much. They now have codes of conduct that apply all of the time, not just when you are on the school grounds. Schools should not reach into the home.
This is exactly why the penny needs to be eliminated from the mint’s production line. It cost more to produce a penny than they are worth.
that must be quite the school to consider paying for lunch with legal tender to be disrespectfull
@Sam.Nerd144: He’s said quite a few times that yes, he means capital punishment. Not that such a policy would fly with the general public- I imagine that in a real-life setting people start slowly backing away from him as soon as that’s mentioned. Mostly because advocating the death penalty for minors (especially under-15s) is socially unacceptable.
Public School. Why are you all acting surprised?
bah, Real life isn’t fair, so I think they should just view the detention they got as a life lesson. Plus the article stated that thanks to their prank, many kids did not even get the opportunity to buy lunch.
I think it’s a sweet idea. go kids go! don’t let the man get you down!
I think the students demonstrated amazing creativity in protesting in such a way. Although other students were ‘hurt’ by the penny-counting, sometimes it’s necessary to break a few eggs to make an omelet. I think the penny protest will eventually serve it’s purpose and the issue of short lunches clearly has the school’s attention. I remember waiting in line for more than half of my lunch time, and then scarfing down the food. It wasn’t fun. There is so much talk about making school lunches healthier to combat childhood obesity. Well it’s not exactly healthy to eat a full meal in 10 minutes.
Ok lets take a step back here and look at the big picture. Forget about small stuff like the laws on coins, that’s just nit-picking.
The kids had an issue with a school policy, 20 minute lunches. In response they stage a prank/protest to draw attention to the problem. However their actions were not proper because they did not first try to go through proper channels and they inconvenienced some people.
The school then reacts by handing out punishments. But the school did not act properly either. Instead of listening to the students grivences and using the event as an opertunity to have a civics lesson on bringing attention to problems and enacting change through proper means they handed down punisments an sent a message that said the school is apathetic to the concerns of students and that one is not allowed to challenge authority.
So then, neither side acted perfectly properly in this case. So then which side was more inappropriate in this case?
While the actions of the children weren’t quite called for they did hit in generally the right direction. If they had first made complaints to administratiors and gotten petitions before resorting to monkey protests then their case would have been air-tight (-1 point). Though they really should have found a way to draw attention to the problem with out inconvenienceing anyone (-1 point). But in all honesty these are kids we are talking about, they’re going to screw up a little and they’re not going to get it %100 correct (+1 point).
Final score: -1 points.
However the school administration is a different matter, as adults they should be held to a higher standard in their actions (0 points). Instead of taking an oppertunity to teach children about how to be a good conscientious citizen in a democracy (-1 point), they hit in completely the wrong direction and decided to demonstrate authority (-1 point). While going with the good civics lesson would have been a good demonstration on why they are the ones who deserve the authority in the school – student relationship. Further more the schools actions leave the wrong impression on kids still learning how the world works (-1 point).
Final score: -3 points.
Students: -1 | Administration: -3
Yeah both sides were wrong in this case, but the school came off worse. If that wasn’t the case to begin with then this would have never been news worthy.
If the school has a problem with students paying with pennies then they should refuse the payment. Simple as that.
1. It’s not about the fact that pennies are legal currency. Retailers can refuse to take cash altogher. You are not paying a “debt” when you buy somthing. You are trading, and if the person who has what you want doesn’t like “real money” then they dont have to accept it.
2. The problem is that at no time before this incident did the school make notice about changing it’s currency acceptance policy. That is, pennies had been accepted before and nothing changed that would have allowed the kids to anticipate reprocussions by using them.
3. This was a perfect example of a peaceful protest. A petition would have been disregraded as quickly as it was handed over. This situation got attention because it required an administrator to deal with some greif. Perfect, requiring the decision makers to deal with discomfort is the number one best way to affect change.
4. The fact that some kids didn’t get to eat lunch at all that day is totally unacceptable. It honestly does not take SOOOO much longer to count pennies than to take regular cash and make change that the time difference over $58 worth of transactions would put someone out of time. Those kids really didn’t get a fair shake to begin with.
5. I don’t remember who made the comment but, adding 20 minutes to school lunch would add an extra hour to the school day. Have you ever tried lining up 1000 kids and squeezing them into a 400 max occupancy cafetorium? No, you havn’t. Kids eat lunch in shifts.
@Arrngrim: IMO you were raised without compassion or even the smallest amount of empathy and as such I feel sorry for you. I bet when you talk of discipline you actually mean physical abuse as surely you must have been abused as a youth to discount human life in such a way. You must live a very empty life what with no family of your own. An existence that has poisoned you to the point that you can only troll the internet calling for the death of children.
Simply put, you advocate putting children to death. No more details are necessary to highlight your asinine posts…
@zippyglue: I’m glad somebody else thinks like I do regarding this reprehensible statement.
@Arrngrim:
The simple logistics of you statements don’t add up. How can all “the little brats” Be just “playing along with the prank”? Here’s an experiment for you. Go anywhere in the entire USA and walk up to 50+ seperate individuals in a row and ask them to give you change for a $5 bill in pennies. Any bets on what happens? You fail. Even less likely that kids are walking around with a spare 500 pennies in their pockets waiting to pull a prank on an unsuspecting lunch lady. This took planning, and kids plan with purpose. No school yard prank that takes 2 days to pull off is ever going to happen. But a protest that requires parents help, (And yes, their parent’s are definatly the ones who got them the pennies) totally belivable
“There are ways to express yourself that [we will easily be able to ignore -- but we must have zero tolerance for calling unavoidable attention to a genuine problem.]” said Readington Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jorden Schiff.
I can only hope the the kids themselves, or with the encouragement of their parents and teachers, accept their detention and then pay with pennies the next day… and then with nickels the day that pennies are forbidden, then dimes. And, the day that debit cards are forced upon them, have everyone “change their mind” at the point of payment and leave the try (and the person behind them refuse a tray that someone else had a chance to breathe/sneeze on,) etc., etc.