Update: St. Cloud School District Apologizes For School Lunch

The St. Cloud School District apologized via their official Facebook account on Friday for a lunch they served up consisting of a hot dog bun with cheese, marinara sauce, carrots and milk. The district wrote, "Oops! We goofed. Tried a new menu item today at lunch and we hear it was not a winner! Going forward, we will gather input from our students on new menu options."

A photo of that school lunch has gained popularity online, drawing largely negative comments from the Facebook community. People had concerns ranging from the nutritional value of the food to the actual dollar value of the meal.

One commenter, Emily Johnson wrote, "This is a sad excuse for a meal...this could be all a child gets to eat for the day," referring to students on the free and reduced meal program.

Jeff Pfannenstein questioned, "How can a student athlete eat that and not be hungry in a(n) hour or so?"

Another commenter, Yolanda Bridgette Williams wrote, "I am a lunch lady and those people who served that should be ashamed of themselves."

There were people who stuck up for the school district and defended the meal.

Joseph Zimmer wrote, "most likely there was a fruit and another option they chose not to take."

Nicole Lang wrote, "(it's) one lunch, geez people."

Valerie Coopet wrote, "It has been my experience that the cooks care about nutrition and children and the cooks I know always did their best. I suggest you spend some time in a cafeteria and talk to the cooks. Not only are the cooks bound by the cost of the food, they have a budget for staff creating limited time to prepare and clean up and rotate a whole school population through the cafeteria in a short amount of time."

The student who originally posted the photo to her private social media account has updated her caption. The student says, "I had a meeting with my school principal and was told I get to have a meeting with the district's nutritionist...This is the start of something that could forever change my district."

Since being published on Friday, the student's photo has been shared nearly 1,000 times with hundreds of comments and over a thousand Facebook reactions. The school's apology post has also had few hundred comments and reactions. The district eventually clarified, "this was one lunch item, a new choice."

You can see the original posts by the student and the school district below.