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A Pennsylvania school district is facing backlash after informing parents to pay their children’s outstanding lunch debts or lose them to the foster care system. The Wyoming Valley West School District sent out hundreds of letters last week warning parents they could be taken to court over the overdue tabs according to CNN affiliate WNEP. A district official said the letter was sent to “put parents on notice that the district intends to collect the lunch money it is owed.”

Many parents have called the threat “cruel,” however, and said the district has went too far.

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“Very extreme,” resident Ruth Bates told the station. “Maybe unnecessary, maybe cruel and brutal on the government’s part.”

The letter was sent to 1,000 families who owed money, informed parents that there have been “multiple” notices sent home with their child.

“Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” the letter said. “[And] if you are taken to Dependency court, the result could be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care.”

The letter sparked outrage across the local community, and put the county’s Department of Children and Youth Services into the center of the controversy. Joanne Van Saun, who leads the agency, claims the district of “weaponizing” her agency to strong-arm families.

“The way they handled it was totally inappropriate, unnecessary and could have easily been resolved through so many different avenues,” Saun told CNN. “We’re really there to help, and not destroy families.”

The news outlet reported the school district’s Cafeteria Purchase Charging and Insufficient Funds policy makes no mention of parents potentially going to court or having their kids taken away over lunch debts. However, parents whose student account reaches negative $10 or more will receive “an automated call every Friday until the account” is paid in full.

Director of federal programs Joseph Muth, described the decision to send the letter as a “last resort” to collect what was owed. Muth said Wyoming Valley West, is one of the poorest school districts in the state,and is owed more than $22,000 in breakfast and lunch debt by approx. 1,000 students.

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