Have to Eat the School Lunch?

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According to this story, a PUBLIC school has said unless you have a medical condition, You aren't allowed to bring your lunch from home.

I'm no legal expert, but it would appear that this would violate some pretty obvious personal liberties. School lunches have never been confused with fine dining, but the way the policy is setup, you either eat what they serve, or eat nothing at all...

WTF? This is a public school mind you - I'd have less of an issue with a private school, as if the kids/parents thought that it was a ridiculous rule, they could go elsewhere...

And this is all because the principal wasn't happy that a lot of students were eating soda and chips during lunch? Oh the horror! Kids that actually like drinking soda and eating snacks during lunch time! The outrage!

 

Crazy.

At my son's school, you HAVE to bring your lunch from home. There is no school-supplied lunch.

And if that Jamie Oliver show is anything to go by, American school lunches are pretty unhealthy anyway.

 

I can't see a dumbass policy like this passing any serious opposition.

 

If a student has dietry requirements then the school would have to accomidate for it, if their only exclusion is medical reasons then they have to allow for other options the school has to have provision for.

I personally don't see this as so much of an issue, but then again I don't know how different UK school foods and US school dinners are.

 

They aren't. US schools do provide free lunches to students from low-income families, but they certainly aren't free to everyone. Obviously, I have no idea if this school is inner city, in the suburbs, and what the socio-economic background of most of the students are, but it's a pretty safe bet that a good chunk of the student population would have to pay for the lunch, which might not be something they even like to eat.

And that's the part I find particularly galling - pay more for a lunch than what it would cost you to bring a lunch from home, and like the lunch you bought less than the one you would have brought with you. How much does it cost for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? A quarter - maybe 50 cents? The school lunch was a lot more than that when I went to school over 20 years ago.

The name of the school is "Little Village Academy", which suggests it's an elementary school. If the kids have soda and snacks with their lunch, their parents don't have a problem with them eating them, because elementary schoolers aren't buying it themselves.

 

In Finland school-lunches are basically free for everyone and schools are forced to accommodate different dietary and religious options, so I don't really see a problem with it around here. In a way I think it's actually preferable since it teaches the kids to eat various foods they might have a problem with at home. Of course no one can force them to eat but in that case they go hungry and can eat at home at the end of the day.

EDIT: I'm not quite sure if you allowed to eat your own food during school lunches or not. I've never actually seen anyone do it so I think it's at the very least extremely rare.

 

That can't be legal

 

Exactly how I see it. The principal appears to be on a power trip.

 

arent school policies in the US made by a board of school govenors, which normally consist of several parents like they are in the UK?

 

I am glad we had different choices in food such as going through the hot line or having a wrap that we could customize to our taste so that you get get a meat free one if you liked. We also had different drinks as well such as flavored water or strawberyy milk or tea for that matter. I ate the wraps most of the time for lunch myself. glad i was getting free lunch. reduced lunch iss 40 cents or so and a meal is like $1 something or was it $2? Cant quite remember. I live in a small village thats slowly turning into a town around here.

 

One would think - it does seem strange to me that the principal can change a rule like that on a whim. You would think that there would be a school board or something where a committee would vote on rule changes. That said, the article didn't mention anything about that, and not being from Chicago myself, I have no idea how the local school system is set up.

 

This will have grave consequences for the lunchbox industry. Tupperware might go out of business is kids don't bring lunch from home in resealable plastic containers.

 

I don't need some stuck up, arrogant tool telling me what I can and can't feed my children. And it is none of their GD business telling children what they can and can't eat for lunch. Call me a right wing reactionary if you will, but it's this sort of crud that symbolizes just how far some people want to insert government control into the lives of everyday citizens.

I'm all for a subsidized lunch program for children whose parents are too busy doing drugs, getting drunk, and running human smuggling operations to pack their kid a decent lunch -- the children shouldn't be punished for the filthy criminality of the parents. But for the vast majority of us, we are perfectly capable of determining our children's foods without help from the self appointed commissars of everything.

If the school wants to eliminate vending machines that carry candy in an effort to reduce childhood obesity, good on them. But don't tell me that I can't send food to the school. It's a little thing, I know, but to LKD it symbolizes creeping government control, all in the guise of "helping" people. I don't need Big Brother's help, and I would hazard that a good chunk of the population agrees with me.

 

When did what kids eat become a problem? weve eaten this stuff for years and never had a problem, stop looking at food and start focusing on childrens lifestyles.

 

Where I think this requirement would be good for the children regarding their health, I would also think it possible he is trying to fatten school coffers as well. Maybe to compensate for less government monetary contribution toward school budgeting???? Who knows...

 

Ok, I will. But it has nothing to do with the topic.

The government?? Where did THAT come from? Oh, wait! This must be Obama's fault also...I get it now.

 

Uh, no, I never mentioned Obama -- I'm pretty sure that he has more important things to do than dicate what foods Americans eat.

I see the schools as an instrument of the State. That's not always a bad thing -- publicly funded schools serve a valid interest of the state. But nonetheless, they are funded and regulated by the government. In terms of teaching the children in classes, that's one thing. Dictating what they eat at lunchtime (the free time of the child)? That's not one of the functions a public school should be taking upon itself.