Source: Lorain City Schools
A lunch aide and principal were fired from Palm Elementary school in Lorain, Ohio, after forcing a 9-year-old Black girl to eat from the trash bin.
According to WKYC, the incident was caught on surveillance on Nov. 21, 2021. The video showed the fourth-grade student throwing a waffle in the garbage can when she finished eating. A lunch lady, identified as a paraprofessional named Monika Sommers-Fridenstine, and Principal Debra Pustulka were standing by the bin as the student emptied her tray. Then, Sommers-Fridenstine took the waffle out of the garbage bin and gave it back to her. The 34-minute video, released on Jan. 19, included students whose faces were blurred out to protect their identities. Cleveland attorney Jared Klebanow filed a federal civil lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against Lorain City School district on behalf of the student’s mother. She planned to use the video footage in court.
The lawsuit stated that Sommers-Fridenstine sat across the young girl and forced her to eat the waffles as classmates laughed at her. It also claimed that she underwent mental health treatment following the incident.
“The video is shocking, it’s disheartening, it’s disturbing, and it’s really what this child has been saying since the beginning,” Klebanow told Cleveland 19. “She throws her lunch away like thousands of students do across the country do every day. For one reason or another, this monitor pulls the waffle from the garbage, holds it out like she doesn’t even wanna look at it or see it, wipes it off with a napkin and hands it back to the student and forces her to eat it.” He added that Sommers-Fridenstine intimidates and scared the 9-year-old while the Pustulka stood nearby during the whole endeavor.
Following an internal investigation with the school district, both Sommers-Fridenstine and Pustulka were fired by Lorain City Schools Superintendent, Dr. Jeff Graham. The Lorain Board of Education supported the decision.
The Palm Elementary student’s mother also spoke to a reporter from Cleveland 19 and expressed how upset her daughter was about the situation.
“She doesn’t act the same, she doesn’t even wanna go to school. She’s forced,” she said. “It’s terrible to think that a child who goes to school and feels safe may now never feel safe again at school. It’s humiliating, it’s disgraceful, it’s unacceptable.”
She added that her daughter allegedly became sick and went to the hospital after telling her mom that she was told consume a waffle retrieved from the trash can.
“Nobody else’s child should ever have to go through something like this,” she said.
Her suit asked Lorain City School district for an undetermined amount of money and an admission of wrongdoing.