The days of a mother baking cupcakes to send to school to celebrate her child’s birthday are over in the Scotia-Glenville Central School District.
The district has enacted a new wellness policy that officials hope will promote a healthier lifestyle among students. Among the new rules adopted by the district’s Board of Education:
Classroom celebrations involving food will be limited to two per month, and only commercial goods that have ingredient labels will be allowed.
Vending machines will offer only fruit or vegetable juice, water or unsweetened tea as drinks, and candy is probibited.
School-sponsored groups are prohibited from selling candy, cookie dough, soda, fruit drinks or home-baked goods in fundraising activities.
Whole milk will be eliminated from the school lunch program, with only juice, lowfat and skim milk, unsweetened tea and water offered.
“When we considered that it was about the health and safety of our kids, we thought that these were reasonable positions to take,” said Joseph Kavanaugh, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, who sat on the committee that developed the policy.
That committee included about 15 members, he said, including students, parents, faculty and administrators, and met for about six months, including review of other district policies. “We saw that some were a little more general and vague,” he said, “and ultimately, I think our group felt that if we were going to do this work, we wanted to have something that had some substance to it in the end.”
Sandy Sheady, a nutrition program representative for the state Child Nutrition Program Administration, said the policy reflects the National School Lunch Program.
“You’ll see a lot of what you’re seeing at Scotia-Glenville throughout the state,” she said. “There’s a lot of what you’re seeing there: the classroom parties, the vending machines, a la carte offerings and school store offerings. Everybody is attacking food first.”
The state Legislature is considering the Healthy Schools Act, a proposal by Gov. Eliot Spitzer that would set statewide standards for food served in schools and mandate the annual development of local wellness policies. The bill is currently awaiting action by rules committees in both the Assembly and Senate.
“Every time we checked on that, we saw an implementation date of September 2008, and we wanted to do our part to begin to change the culture in our district,” Kavanaugh said. “I think we did good work on it, and it undoubtedly is going to change the culture in our district a little bit.”
The new wellness policies have not met with universal acceptance across the state. Sheady said bans on homemade food in classrooms have met with some opposition in downstate school districts, a dispute she said has been dubbed the “cupcake wars.” But by mandating that foods have ingredient labels, schools are not only promoting healthier eating but also protecting students who have food allergies.
“Saying that you can only send in something prepackaged, it’s so they can make evaluations about the ingredients that they’re serving to children,” Sheady said.
Scotia-Glenville’s new policy was publicized earlier this summer in the district’s newsletter, and Kavanaugh said Superintendent Susan Swartz will send a letter out to parents before the new school year begins to further ensure they are aware of the changes.
“We certainly want to leave a line of communication open with the community if they have any concerns,” Kavanaugh said. “But we have our reason for wanting to [enact the new policy], and it involves the health and safety of our kids.”