Schools and Food

Kristen

I have 3 kids-6th, 4th, and 1st grades.  They attend a charter school that is very progressive in some of their thinking.  Most days I really agree with there policies-other days I'm left shaking my head.

When my oldest started school I would let him buy lunch whenever he wanted.  He ended up buying 2-3 times a week.  The lunches were never fantastic and he could pick and choose what he ate off his tray, but it saved me some time in the morning and wasn't overly expensive.  When my daughter started school a few years later, I cut them back to being able to buy lunch once a week.  It adds up buying school lunch every day and they come home famished because they choose not to eat everything on their tray.  When my youngest started last year, I ended my relationship with school lunches.  I don't remember what the cost was last year, but this year the cost of one lunch is $2.75.  If I allowed all 3 of my children to buy lunch every day that would cost me $1485 over the course of the school year-no thank you.

School started a few weeks ago and with it a litany of changes to the day.  One big change was the removal of the vending machines from the cafeteria.  I was vaguely aware that the school had a vending machine-about once a month last year by oldest would take change from his room to buy something on Fridays.  Another big change from last year was the loss of Friday pretzel day.  A local pretzel company would sell soft pretzels for $0.50 during snack times.  This was great, because I didn't have to pack snack on Fridays the whole school year and I could also send in a lighter lunch.  Finally, a note came home addressing birthday treats-no longer were cupcakes allowed, instead a healthy snack could replace it.

So what are my feelings?  For the most part, I'm all for it.  I remember some weeks last year where one of my kids would have 3 birthday treats a week, plus a party thrown in for good measure.  I do miss the Friday pretzels, but I understand it.  I get that our nation's children are overweight and don't exercise enough.  I really do, but I also don't think it's the schools job to dictate what can and can't be eaten at all times-for the most part my kids are eating a very healthy, well-balanced diet.  I think moderation needs to be taught-we shelter our children from making choices by taking away everything-no vending machine, birthdays or Halloween candy.

What set me over the edge was a paper sent home last week detailing how the annual trunk or treat was going to occur this year.  They still want parents to come with a decorated trunk during school hours to hand out treats.  Treats being the operative word.  No longer is candy acceptable-I even slightly understand that.  What they want instead is pencils, erasers and other such junk.  So instead of explaining to these fairly intelligent children why candy is not an option, let's mask the problem and hand out crap that's going to end up in a landfill, because I am hear to tell you that we can not possibly use all the pencils that are handed out to us in any given year.  Or here's another idea-spend the hour in recess teaching these kids some of the fun games we played as kids.  

I was outside with my daughter and a few of her friends recently.  They were jumping rope and I asked them if they knew how to double dutch.  They looked at me as if I had two heads-which is really sad.  I look around my neighborhood and see kids at 7 and 8 years old with training wheels still on there bikes.  Back to the girls-we didn't get as far as double dutch but they had a great time learning new jump rope tricks.  If they would do things like this at the school instead of herding all the kids outside with a bag to collect pencils for 20 minutes-imagine the stories they could come home with at the end of the day. 

What do you think-should schools get rid of trunk or treat completely?