Dozens of American parents have been warned that their children could be taken from them and placed in foster care if they didn’t settle the kids’ school meal debts.
An education board in Pennsylvania sent a threatening letter to 40 families whose children owed $10 or more.
Joseph Mazur, president of the Wyoming Valley West School District, said families owed the education authority around $22,000 in dues for breakfast and lunch.
He said the district had repeatedly tried to remind parents through emails, mail, phone calls and calls by agents but to no avail.
The area in a former coal mining community is one of the poorest districts in the state.
Mazur said the school authority did not deprive any of the children of food and that the letter had worked, with many parents stumping up the cash.