EAG News – by Kyle OlsonHERSHEY, Pa. – If Derry Township School District board member Andrea Abruzzo had her way, kids would celebrate their birthdays with carrots.
Abruzzo’s district is putting a greater emphasis on “non-food rewards,” including birthday treats.
To that end, Derry Township schools have banned cupcakes or “other snacks.”
“We’re trying to encourage non-food rewards for students. So that applies to birthday parties, successes they may have in the classroom,” Dan Tredinnick, the district’s director of school and community information, tells Fox 43.
“We don’t think that snacks are a bad thing. We think that snacks have a place in everybody’s diet, but food served in schools brings with a whole host of challenges. I think that there’s other ways that we can collaboratively make kids feel special, and recognize their accomplishments, that don’t necessarily have to involve food.”
“There are reasons to eliminate birthday treats,” superintendent Joseph McFarland tells the Patriot-News. “We’re trying to teach healthy eating.”
Instead of cupcakes, school leaders are suggesting students bring pencils, pens and stickers or wear “silly socks.”
The paper reports:
[McFarland] said elementary school administrators tried to make a list of healthy snacks, but found it difficult to decide what should be on the list, especially in light of an increase in allergies. Also, district personnel don’t know what goes into homemade treats or how they are prepared. …
Board member Andrea Abruzzo said perhaps there could be a compromise. Maybe parents who want to bring cupcakes should also bring in something like fruit or carrots.
Derry Township’s move – which stems from its “wellness policy” – comes on the heels of the newly implemented school snack regulations championed by First Lady Michelle Obama.
“I think it’s ridiculous that kids can’t bring in cupcakes and things like that. It’s their birthday; they’re going to do it at home, so why not be able to share it with all of the other kids at school,” parent Sarah Smith says, according to Fox 43.
http://eagnews.org/bring-carrots-school-bans-birthday-cupcakes/
“We don’t think that snacks are a bad thing. We think that snacks have a place in everybody’s diet, but food served in schools brings with a whole host of challenges.”
Snacks aren’t a bad thing compared to the cr@p you morons serve in the school cafeterias.
“We’re trying to encourage non-food rewards for students. So that applies to birthday parties, successes they may have in the classroom,” Dan Tredinnick,…”
wow…
until this @ssclown pointed it out, I had no idea that food (or snacks) was a ‘reward’ for having a birthday.
Wonder what the ‘reward’ is for having a Bar Mitzvah.
I have to say I’m on the fence with this one. I enjoyed treats as a kid, but now that I’m all grown up and know more, I don’t see sugar and white flour and especially artificial colorings and flavorings and preservatives as quite the benign things I once did. In many respects I’d rather have genuinely homemade treats served in classrooms, than the ones from the store that are definitely filled with artificial ingredients. A lot of parents kind of like to ensure their kids aren’t being fed harmful things at school — and it is not entirely within our control.
Things really have gotten worse in the past 40 years or so, snacks much less wholesome, and much of what passes for food — isn’t. So, yes, I can see many reasons for adults not to promote putting non-food “treats” in kids’ mouths. Not to mention, the physiological, mental, emotional health effects from eating junk are quite real and harmful. No one should really ever eat artificially dyed blue “food.” Think about it.
I kind of agree that celebrations do not always have to include something to eat. Yet, the birthday parties that kids have at home — why not? Seems to me that is the place for the treats, and maybe downplay it a bit at school. Less frequent food celebrations makes them more special, when they do occur. Cupcakes every week, not so special.
I know this article was meant to be funny and about the food police, though.
It’s a traditional thing in school and something that kids enjoy and look forward to. It’s all a part of a child growing up and you are suggesting to take that away from them?
Yea, maybe the food is not as healthy as it was back then, but don’t miss the point of it all. It’s just more Communist regulations. What are they going to do next? Take away snack time and institute slavery? I mean come on.
Well, like I said, I am on the fence about it. I have been a teacher and a parent as well as a kid, myself. As a parent, I never forbade my kids from having treats but I did talk to them about the importance of eating healthy, and try to set a good example. As a teacher, I saw firsthand the effects on the kids of all that sugar and the blue icing (poison, is what it is). The more I learn, the more I realize that the commercially packaged products, most of them, are quite harmful, so I guess I’m becoming radicalized and more focused on health as I get older.
But no, to answer your question, I wouldn’t place an outright ban on treats at school, nor would I impose regulations that take away the freedoms of the kids to eat bad food/treats if they want. And my kids participated fully in trick or treating and I never told them they couldn’t eat their candy. But at the same time, I cringe at the idea of feeding kids cool whip and blue icing. In a self-reinforcing group where everyone is doing the same thing. (teaches them to drink the kool-aid, sorta, cause everyone’s doing it)
You know, it is really complicated. I’m about individual empowerment and freedom. And that has no place in the schools. Indoctrination is indoctrination, whether it’s promoting Michelle’s lunches or fruit rollups masquerading as fruit at snack time. Any food administered in a group way at school is kind of that (indoctrination).
But I realize my views are a bit extreme. 🙂
“We’re trying to encourage non-food rewards for students. So that applies to birthday parties, successes they may have in the classroom,” Dan Tredinnick,…”
So now food is a reward? What are you saying now? That the students are dogs to be rewarded?
Someone haul this piece of shit out the door and hit him over the head. As a former teacher, this guy makes me want to vomit.
But of course, when it comes to lunchtime, IT’s (That thing they call Michelle Obama) food program is so much more “rewarding” and healthier for the students than these cupcakes. After all, we have to try and make our children like the North Korean children where we have to thank and ask Dear Leader and IT every time we want a snack or a reward.
Unfrigginbelievable….. When are we going to exterminate these Communist pests from this country? I’m sick of this shit. It’s so disgusting and insulting to me that I can’t even take it anymore.
This is control and demoralization to program good, obedient
slave drones that offer zero resistance to their eventual enslavement and culling.
-flek