Monday, April 11, 2011

Chicago School Bans Homemade Lunches!

Here is a link to a story about a Chicago school that has put a complete ban on lunches from home.  So far, this seems to be the first school in the USA to do this.  The article states that there are various schools throughout the country to have limitations & restrictions on lunches brought to school from home, however this seems to be the first with a complete ban on lunches from home altogether.  This school's lunch is $2.25/day.  That is about $45 a month (if the month only has 20 school days) that it will cost the family.  I feel for this reason & others, a school has NO RIGHT to make demands upon a family this way. 
My son is in OT (therapy) for food aversions.  He only eats minced fish type of fish sticks, certain types of chicken nuggets & peanut butter and jelly w/o crust.  Other than that he eats cereal, pancakes, waffles, snack foods & some dessert foods (though even with sweets there are things he won't try and things he's very hesitant to try).  He gets very stressed out & upset at the thought of trying something new.  He is NOT simply a picky eater.  Food aversions may sound like picky eating on the surface but it isn't that simple and it is much harder to deal with - hence the therapy.  So I feel schools should not be allowed to have the power to outright ban homemade lunches, nor should they ever ban peanut products in schools.  They have every right to take precautions to protect children with allergies, but not to ban the products entirely. 
All I can say is, thank God that we homeschool and thank God that Texas is such a great state for homeschooling.
For those interested, here is the blog of one public school mom/teacher talking about school lunches.  She also pictured and described nearly all of the school lunches in 2010 fed to the students.  Her goal in this was to show that school lunches lacked the nutrition it should consist of.  Granted, it seems school lunches may be finally heading in the right direction but banning homemade lunches should not be in their power.
What is your opinion on the matter?  Should a school have the right to completely ban homemade lunches?

2 comments:

Most often known as Mama said...

I heard about this before I seen it on ur blog.
This is just ridiculous to me. It's one more reason I'm glad I HS. More and more, parents rights are being taken away.

Kim said...

I agree with you wholeheartedly Camille. It is ridiculous. I have no clue what the lunch guidelines are at our local school system but if I had to utilize the public schools and they were like this, you can bet I'd be doing all I could to legislate against schools imposing upon families this way. Thank you for commenting. :)