A high school junior was refused lunch at the school cafeteria because he owed just shy of $5 for previous school lunches.

When high school junior Dominic Grant got his lunch at the school cafeteria, he could not have expected something so humiliating to happen to him. Immediately after getting his food tray, a seemingly angry cafeteria lady rushed towards him, took his tray and threw it in the bin. What was the reason for throwing away perfectly good food?

Apparently, Dominic had $5 of unpaid cafeteria debt for previous school lunches. He was left humiliated and all of his school friends saw it. “It was really embarrassing,” he told CNN. “Right in front of the whole lunch room, they took my plate away and said I didn’t have enough to eat today.” When his mother, Amanda Keown, heard that her son’s lunch had been taken away from him because he owed the school less than $5, she was flabbergasted.

There have been previous cases where lunch ladies in school cafeterias would get fired over giving food to hungry students who couldn’t afford it, but none like what happened to her son. It’s an issue that plagues schools all across the United States. Keown could not understand how the school could prioritize money over the students’ well-being. So, what did Keown do?

Well, she went down to the school and left everyone in awe when she paid her son’s and every other student’s cafeteria debt. It took $200 to settle everyone’s account and saved a lot of students from potentially humiliating treatment by the cafeteria staff. She said she did it because she did not want any other kid going through what her son went through. If only the school shared her views, then the school would be a much more pleasant place for students.

“I was appalled that he was denied lunch and his lunch was taken out of his hands over $5,” she said. “I realize that I didn’t have to do that, but I don’t want another kid going through what my son went through.” The school’s treatment of Grant was just appalling. There’s a clear distinction between letting a student know that his tab had accumulated quite a lot of debt and outright humiliating them in front of the other students.

Even if he owed more than just $5, the school should not have behaved in such a way, and the people who advocate such behaviour are not fit to run a school. Hopefully, Grant’s story will bring some attention to this issue, which is present in many of the schools throughout the United States.