The Education Committee lasted almost three hours yesterday. We had several long presentations but the surprise was what I might have imagined to be a non controversial new policy on Wellness.
The initial Wellness policy presentation was given at our January meeting and Alanna Oswald joined by Art Johnston raised a number of objections about snacks in schools that might be outlawed by new federal regulations. I’ll be honest. I quickly tuned out the discussion eager for a quicker end to the meeting. But this was much bigger potatoes than I realized. Our student reps from the high schools became quite engaged.
Yesterday we learned from Student Rep. Ben Emmel that 200 Denfeld students had signed a petition supporting cookie sales by classes for special ed students which sold their school baked cookies each lunch period. In addition sports teams and many other school related groups were worried that their sales of similar goodies might be curtailed. and then there was the question of elementary students who brought birthday goodies to their classrooms.
After yesterday’s discussion it became obvious that many people had been researching the issue and the Superintendent himself bent over backwards to explain that the Federal Government had a lot of exceptions and flexibility built into its nutrition regulations. In the end I’m not sure the new Wellness Policy will pose a threat to these long lived traditions.
But then again when I was on the School Board the principals effectively killed a proposal to get rid of vending machines that sold pop and candy. Our fellow Board member, UMD Physical Ed teacher Pati Rolf, decried these unnecessary calories. She left before she won her argument but after the fact she prevailed. Nonetheless, calories have a stubborn habit of sneaking back. Just look at my Girl Scout Cookies which, by-the-by, do qualify as a “smart snack” under Federal nutrition regulations. I just ate three of them. “Smores” ummmm, yummy!
