Some of you have been waiting for this post since I baited you on Facebook and Twitter, so here it is.
The schools in my district have decreased our holiday parties to 4 per year, they are all acceptably innocuous and called names that won't directly offend any person or their beliefs,
Halloween,
Winter, Spring, and
End of the Year. After some changes a few years ago, one treat was allowed and a "healthy alternative" must be present.
Example: If you serve cookies, you must serve water to drink and also provide carrot sticks or grapes as a healthy alternative. If you serve a drink with sugar, you cannot have a cookie and only fruits or veggies.
These parties are only allowed for students in grades K-3 and all parties are to cease at the level of 4th grade (you know, 9 year olds are grown up). Any parties from that point on are very few and in some cases none, and must relate to some sort of academic milestone (100th day of school, 3rd quarter, etc...) and are allotted 20 minutes at the end of the day to mill around and visit while music is on.
The kids spend 8+ hours a day in school and it's a hard pill for them to swallow.
Last month, our school board had a meeting and voted to eliminate all food and drinks from all school parties. This topic was not on the agenda and no one (including PTO officers) knew of the vote or the decision until it was final. Have you ever attended a party that served no food or drinks?!?
It's
Feedback Friday...
Do you agree with eliminating food and drinks from school parties?
Is this a step forward to solving the childhood obesity epidemic? If it's an allergy thing, would your child with an allergy prefer to have approved food at his/her party or no food?
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