CHICAGO, Illinois - May 9, 2011 - Chicago Public Schools is apologizing to a mother and her two young sons, ages 5 and 6, after they were denied breakfast because they came to school wearing the wrong kind of shoes.
The Nicholson brothers only grab a quick snack before heading to class because they qualify for a full free breakfast at Adam Powell Grade School. It’s something they look forward to every day, and it hurt when they were recently turned away.
They were wearing black athletic shoes. The boys told their mom that the assistant principal, Angela Peagler, wouldn’t let them eat because their shoes didn’t fit the school uniform, which calls for a regular black dress shoe.
“I felt sad. We’re always supposed to have breakfast,” first-grader Noah Nicholson says.
Noah and his brother Niko, who is in kindergarten, went to class hungry and didn’t eat until lunch.
“It hasn’t been a problem all this time and all of a sudden they can’t have breakfast because of their shoes,” says Kahlia Edwards, the boys’ mother.
Edwards says the boys have been wearing the same shoes all year and administrators never complained. She’s confused.
The boy’s great aunt is livid.
“I don’t care if they had on orange shoes, they were in line to eat,” says Robin Price. “I’m not going to feed you because you have the wrong shoes? Shoes? No, no.”
CBS 2 tried to ask both the assistant principal and Principal Derek Jordan to explain what happened. They wouldn’t. However, a manager at the CPS regional office spoke with a reporter.
Area 17 Management Support Director Darryl Earl says Peagler told him she thought the boys had returned to the breakfast but he acknowledged she was wrong. “Regardless of what shoes they were wearing, obviously the children should have been allowed the opportunity to merge into breakfast,” he says.
Monday afternoon, the principal and assistant principal apologized to the boys and their mother.
They went on to explain that they were reacting to an increase in students violating the school dress code. The principal even offered to buy the boys new black shoes.
