A school lunch worker has quit her job after having to tell a little boy who just wanted to eat that he couldn’t have anything because he hadn’t paid. Stacy Koltiska quit the Canon-McMillan, Pa., school district which had enacted a new policy that said cafeteria workers cannot serve a hot meal to students who more than $25 on their lunch accounts, according to a Washington Post report.

The boy had a negative balance on his account, and thus Koltiska was forced to refuse the boy a hot meal because he couldn’t afford it — something that Koltiska said she found detestable.

She felt she couldn’t continue to enforce the policy, so she resigned from Wylandville Elementary School last week after two years at the school district.

Students who aren’t allowed a hot meal don’t go hungry — they are alllowed a sandwich made of what bread with a slice of cheese, but Koltsika said it’s a cruel punishment to children simply because they are poor. Meanwhile, the hot meal set aside for the child is simply thrown away, and the parents would still get charged the full price for the meal.

School officials behind the policy say it is meant to keep parents current on their lunch accounts, and is not meant to target the poor or shame a child.

The school district has cashed in ever since enacted the policy: before, 300 families owed the district between $60,000 and $100,000 each year, but now that figure is down to just $20,000 and a total of 70 families.