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A school nutrition manager deserves most of the blame for dumping the meals of 17 Uintah Elementary students earlier this year, according to an independent report released by the Salt Lake City School District on Thursday.

The students' meal accounts were in arrears and they were given a snack of fruit and milk after their lunches were publicly taken away last winter.

Outside investigators concluded the school nutrition manager failed to appropriately notify parents that their child's lunch account balances were low. The report also said the lunch worker lied to her supervisor about having notified those parents and about her normal procedures for dealing with kids with low balances.

The findings fly in the face of assertions made by Uintah parents, who argued their beloved school nutrition manager was simply doing her best. They have long blamed district policy and administrators, saying the nutrition manager has been made into a scapegoat. Hundreds of parents signed a petition this winter asking district officials to protect the manager, known as Miss Shirley.

Uintah parent Ashley Hoopes, who has been vocal about the matter for months, said the report shocked and disappointed her.

"You cannot blame a low-level lunch worker or any of her peer lunch workers who were trying to make sense of a very bad policy," Hoopes said, "when the people that created and enforce the policy are just standing by, making six figures, with business as usual."

The incident became national news, drawing outrage from parents across the country. It also spurred the Salt Lake City School District and several others to change their policies. Many schools now pledge to serve kids only full meals, regardless of their parents' balances.

Uintah's school nutrition manager, Miss Shirley, resigned last month. Attempts to reach her on Thursday were not successful.

The Tribune agreed not to use Shirley's last name because of threats she said had been made against her.

According to the report, "In our interview with her, she stated that she recognized that her conduct had been inconsistent with remaining an employee of the Salt Lake City School District and that she had made a determination to voluntarily resign from her employment."

Salt Lake City-based Thompson Ostler & Olsen prepared the report at the district board's request after parents demanded an independent investigation.

The report said many factors contributed to the incident, but placed much of the blame on the nutrition manager.

"It is evident that [Shirley's] failure to perform her job functions by giving notice to parents of account deficits, and thereafter repeatedly lying to [supervisor Peggy Bjornn], were the primary causes of so many lunches having been taken away from students on 28 January 2014," the report said.

According to the report, Bjornn, visited the school that day to follow up on the relatively high number of kids who were recorded as receiving fruit and milk rather than full lunches.

Bjornn asked the nutrition manager prior to the visit if she was really replacing so many kids' lunches, and Shirley lied, saying yes, according to the report. Then when Bjornn visited the school, Shirley set up carts at the end of the lunch line to help her replace kids meals and again lied to her supervisor, saying she regularly set up the carts, the report concluded.

"When a student, a young girl in second grade, approached the point of sale and it was determined that she did not have sufficient money in her school lunch account to pay for the lunch, [Shirley] looked over at Peggy Bjornn and Ms. Bjornn asked: 'So what do you do?'," the report recounted.

"[Shirley] said, 'We have to take away the lunch and give them fruit and milk' — which she then proceeded to do. As more students proceeded through, one student, a young second grade girl, began to cry when her meal was taken away."

Attempts to reach Bjornn for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

It had been previously estimated that up to 40 lunches were taken from children and put in the trash, but the report said 17 meals were taken.

In a past interview with The Tribune, Shirley acknowledged it was difficult to always notify all parents of their balances because she was short-staffed. She also said she was not routinely replacing kids' lunches with snacks when they were behind on balances because she didn't have the heart to do that.

Many Uintah parents still support the lunch worker.

Lynn Lonardo said Thursday she hadn't yet had a chance to read the full report, but, "It obviously sounds like Shirley is still being considered as the scapegoat, and [district Child Nutrition Director] Kelly Orton and the administrators, I think, should still be held accountable."

The report also blames the incident on the switch to a new online lunch payment system; a failure of the district to notify all parents about that system; a lack of clear direction at the school on taking away kids' lunches; and a lack of clear direction from district administrators on taking away kids' lunches.

According to the report, Uintah Principal Chelsea Malouf told investigators that she had implemented an explicit policy that no students would ever have lunches taken away. But investigators concluded that "it is evident from the prior emails and from what had actually occurred that, in fact, no such clear rule had ever been established."

Investigators also disagreed with Orton's claims that workers had been informed that they should never take away student lunches before the incident.

Attempts to reach Malouf and Orton for comment on Thursday were unsuccessful.

The report also notes that Shirley admitted that she, at times, took money paid by one student and applied it to another student's lunch account. She denied misappropriating money for her own benefit.

Investigators said in the report they believe Shirley moved money around to "cover up the fact that she had not completed her job duties to contact parents regarding lunch account deficits."

Hoopes said the lunch manager only moved money between related students' accounts.

The report also stated that similar events unfolded at Wasatch Elementary before the incident at Uintah.

Uintah parent Erica Lukes said she still thinks many questions remain, including how administrators should be held accountable.

"They're still going to pin Shirley for something when really this is the responsibility of the nutrition department," Lukes said. "There was no clear communication with anybody."

Others, however, said they feel the report answered many questions.

"I think there's plenty of blame to go around for what happened on that day. I think it's a fairly complete description of the types of things that occurred," said Heather Bennett, Salt Lake School Board vice president.

Bennett said she hopes the report will help the district continue to improve services for kids and families.

Shawn Rossiter, a Uintah parent and member of the school's community council, said Thursday he had not yet had a chance to read the full 40-page report. But he said he hopes it will help everyone learn how to better work together in the future.

"It looked to me like there were mistakes made," Rossiter said, speaking as an individual, not on behalf of the council. "I don't have any hard feelings. There was miscommunication all around."

The school board is scheduled to meet again Tuesday, but Bennett said she does not expect any discussion at that meeting about the report. The board will likely consider the report's recommendations at its first meeting in October.

Bennett said she couldn't comment on further disciplinary action except to say the board has had a discussion in closed session about the personnel implications of the report.