THE owners of a takeaway shop are upset high school students have been banned from buying lunch at their store, accusing Yarrawonga College P-12 of discrimination.
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Jimbos Milk Bar operators Susan and James Hasell, whose business is opposite the college’s McLean Street campus, believe the school is being unfair.
“If the students go out and get KFC there doesn’t seem to be a problem,” she said.
“It should be my choice (to be able to sell lunch to the students), not theirs.”
Mrs Hasell said they had got the impression the school opposed its students visiting their shop because it took business away from its own canteen.
“I feel victimised,” she said.
“And it’s not as if it’s for health reasons — the canteen sells what we sell.”
College principal Kim Stewart said “it’s not a matter of discrimination”, but the education provider had a “duty of care to our students, which means during the day they’re required to be here at school”.
“We have a canteen service on-site ... we follow healthy eating guidelines set out by the education department and deep fried food doesn’t fit with them,” Ms Stewart said.
“We do serve oven-baked chips and wedges but we don’t have any deep frying equipment in our canteen.”
Ms Stewart said students were issued with lunch passes which required them to dine at home and did not permit them to eat at takeaway stores or bring fast food to the school.
She admitted teachers had bought food from Jimbos Milk Bar and as a result staff had been encouraged to follow the healthy eating policy.
Mrs Hasell said the school had told them about owing students a duty of care.
The couple are not confident the school will reverse its decision.
“I really don’t think there’s going to be any change on their part,” Mrs Hasell said.
She said one of their own two children had been told that if she was seen at school with the one of their shop’s distinctive newspaper-style fish and chip wrappings, she would be suspended or possibly asked to attend another school.
Mrs Hasell said she understood this to be the consequences facing other students.
Despite this they still saw students hiding away near the school in order to eat the lunch bought from the shop.
Ms Stewart believed the Hasells’ child had been spoken to by a school co-ordinator and warned of consequences, but she did not believe being asked to attend another school would be an option canvassed.