A Roxboro woman has filed a formal complaint with a local school board after her son was disciplined by a lunch program monitor at Ecole Lalande for eating in what she says is a customary Filipino manner.
Luc Cagadoc’s table behaviour is traditionally Filipino; he fills his spoon by pushing the food on his plate with a fork, his mother, Maria Theresa Gallardo, says.
But after being punished by his school’s lunch program monitor more than 10 times this year for his mealtime conduct — including his technique — the seven-year-old told Gallardo said last week that he was too embarrassed to eat his dinner.
“Mommy, I don’t want to eat anymore,” Gallardo says Luc told her at the kitchen table April 11. “My teacher is telling me that eating with a spoon and fork is yucky and disgusting.”
When he eats with both a spoon and fork, instead of only one utensil, the Grade 2
student said the lunch monitor moves him to a table to sit by himself.