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The Salt Lake City School District is reiterating that a school cafeteria worker broke district protocol in January when she "arbitrarily and capriciously" plucked lunches from 17 students, giving them milk and fruit instead.
School district officials on Thursday evening sent parents a second outside report detailing that the Uintah Elementary lunch worker sidestepped district guidelines in directing payments for thousands of student meals into the wrong accounts last year.
The district in recent weeks said several cafeteria employees had inaccurately processed $8,000 in cash and check payments prior to the Jan. 28 debacle.
The new report from law firm Thompson, Ostler & Olsen comes in response to parents' questions submitted to the Salt Lake City school board earlier this month. But it largely refers to the findings of an earlier investigation by the same firm. And some parents say many of their questions were not answered.
"I was pretty disappointed with the number of times that they said they weren't looking into certain questions," said Ashley Hoopes, a Uintah parent. The firm did not seek to determine how the local school board conducted its own investigation, or whether district employees were disciplined appropriately. The new report said such issues were outside the investigation's scope as assigned by the Salt Lake City Board of Education.
At Uintah, the lunch worker, Shirley Canham, has resigned. She's been described by parents as beloved and known as "Miss Shirley."
Canham, 62, told the Tribune in recent weeks that the first report omitted key details and excused district officials for keeping an outdated, ill-conceived policy in place.
The district is eager to move on, said spokesman Jason Olsen.
"We've changed our policies so it doesn't happen again."
ankox@sltrib.com Twitter: @anniebknox