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This article made National news agencies, but I did not hear about it on any local news agencies. I was wondering what people thought of NC State Employees telling parents what they can and can not feed their children. Do we have any freedoms left?
In North Carolina, all Pre-Kindergarten schools are required to evaluate the lunches being provided and determine if they meet USDA Nutrition Guidelines. If not, they must provide an alternative.
A student in Raeford, NC at West Hoke Elementary School was given Chicken Nuggets to replace their sack lunch on Jan. 30 because a state employee told the child that her lunch that her mother packed was not nutritious. The sack lunch included a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice, but did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day. The Agent worked for the the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child Development and Early Education.
Also the Parent was sent home a bill of $1.25 to cover the cost of the meal replacement. If parents do not stand up together then we will lose all our freedoms to the Government and State.
"With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that's the dairy," said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. "It sounds like the lunch itself would've met all of the standard." The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.
Sounds like the case of an employee that had no idea what they were talking about. Personally I see nothing wrong with providing a replacement lunch to a child in this situation:
Quote:
"If a parent sends their child with a Coke and a Twinkie, the child care provider is going to need to provide a balanced lunch for the child," Kozlowski said.
And you may sit there and say that a parent would never send their kid to lunch with a meal like that, but when I was a teacher I saw it happen ALL the time. It was quite sad really.
Last edited by evaofnc; 02-15-2012 at 01:29 PM..
Reason: z
And you may sit there and say that a parent would never send their kid to lunch with a meal like that, but when I was a teacher I saw it happen ALL the time. It was quite sad really.
Then call or send a note home to the parent, don't embarrass the child. Sometimes kids throw out the healthy part of their lunches as well and only keep the sweets and snacks. This is Nanny State overreach and it needs to end.
Then call or send a note home to the parent, don't embarrass the child. Sometimes kids throw out the healthy part of their lunches as well and only keep the sweets and snacks. This is Nanny State overreach and it needs to end.
Trust me, teachers know the difference between a kid just choosing to eat the crap packed in their lunch and a kid sent only with crap in their lunch. The school I worked for the "solution" would be to contact the parents and guess what? Nothing would change. That kid would still be coming to school with a Coke and a Twinkie. So then you have this kid that can't concentrate in class at all because they're hyped up on sugar and haven't eaten real food in God knows how long, if ever.
I had one of my students admit to me that their mother never cooked or served food at home, that she and her brother were just left to forage through the cabinets for what they could find to eat. And this girl did not come from a low-income family. If she had, at least she would have been able to get free lunch from the school.
So while I agree that in this particular situation the employee was in the wrong, I don't disagree with the plan itself. What it sounds like should have happened based on the article is the employee would recognize something was lacking in the lunch and would provide the lacking item in addition to what the child brought from home.
You need to see the poor Breakfast and Lunch offerings in the Wake County Public Schools.
If they're anything like what they were in the 80s and 90s I'm sure they're just awful. Most school cafeteria food shouldn't even be classified as food.
Yeah, I'm wondering how schools can regulate what kids bring when the stuff they served is so processed and they are counting ketchup as a vegetable.
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NC Regulating school lunches
