The "new policy" in our schools this year is the Health initiative. Can we say "bogus"?? (Yes, miss negative again!) So far, the only change that I've seen is that instead of sending a class treat for birthdays, we can only send in a gift for the class for our child's birthday!! This is supposed to create healthier children. Hmmm...
Well, I'm no fitness freak, but I can think of a few things that might make school "healthier" for kids. For one, how about longer recess or P.E. classes? How about healthier school lunches?? Or better yet, how about improving our 25 year old playground that is inappropriate for kindergarteners??? Most schools in our county, even the "less popular" ones, have a separate, age-appropriate playground just for preschoolers. Not ours, even though parents and administrators have been requesting that for years!! In fact, our school has one blacktop area, one playground/mulched area and this year no grassy areas due to the delayed building of two more kindergarten rooms for the new full day kindergarten that has already started. The foundation for that addition has NOT EVEN BEEN LAID OUT YET!!
Basically, if I felt like there were other significant changes being made to benefit my children's health, no birthday treats would seem like a great idea. But the bottom line is that this is no "health inititiative", it's a "let's see if we can't just eliminate complaints about food in the classrooms for our food allergy students" initiative. Why not just have a peanut free school??(*) It's not that hard, it's safer and it allows the students to enjoy the few fringe benefits of school, such as a few times a month getting to celebrate a special day for a student in the room? I don't know about everyone else, but the day I got to bring in cupcakes and pass them around then take the extras to everyone in the school office - those days were AWESOME!! Well, those days are no more!
I guess to me, each year with the elimination of holiday parties and now birthdays, I am feeling like school really is just a boring place for kids to live out their young lives. At our school, last year Kt had not one off site field trip. I LOVED field trips, so the thought of not having even one just ruins it for me. What is this world coming to?
On a side note, totally off this terrible topic, Em announced to me this morning that on her radio (which she has set to WGTS, a christian station) they said there would be thunderstorms. She told me they might have to come home early from school! LOL I had to break it to her that you have to stay in school for thunderstorms. She was not at all happy about that, so I'm praying for no storms until she gets home! Of course, then we'll have to skip the pool again. So much for our health initiative!
*The truth is, schools would rather listen to a few parents complain about food allergies than to take the bold step of just eliminating peanuts and having to listen to a majority of parents complain. Having a peanut free school would mean sending in Oreos for a birthday treat instead of homemade cupcakes - doesn't sound so bad to me! Not to mention we would be eliminating a fatal risk for some children. If you want to make a healthy decision, make all schools peanut free. How about that??
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