The ‘Right’ Direction
As one of the five members of the School Board who is expected to vote on the new Wellness Policy at next Tuesday night’s meeting, Ms. Wolkowitz approves of the path toward greatly improved school day nutrition for students. ”This policy is a good step in the direction of educating the whole child, not just a portion of the child,” she told thefrontpageonline.com. The main worry to emerge from this week’s final community meeting was how fundraising will be affected by a new and more strict body of rules governing permissible foods. The issue seems still to be dangling because the worriers had not been mollified by the end of the meeting. The concerns may not be resolved until after the implementation starts n September. In a substantial concession to fundraisers, the guidelines were revised to apply only until 30 minutes after the end of the school day. Thereafter, theoretically, fundraisers will be able to operate as the presently do. When activities of a Bake Sale Committee were discussed, Ms. Wolkowitz said that “another District policy” is that all food brought onto campuses is to be store-bought. “That is just a matter of food safety,” Mr. Hacker interjected. But the woman who introduced the subject said she had combed School District sidelines. “It is not written down anywhere,” she concluded. That led to a suggestion that the store-bought notion may be more a matter of custom than policy.
Will They Raise Less Money?
Parents and teachers who participate in fundraising events are worried that the tightening of nutrition regulations — which Mr. Hacker promises will be closely monitored — will endanger their efforts. The Food Services specialist said that he was thinking of alternative ideas he believes would prevent a falloff in fundraising. “There are all sorts of ways to make money for schools outside of the traditional ones,” he said. A longtime PTA activist when her children were in school, Ms. Wolkowitz said that fundraising is significant but not necessarily paramount in the present circumstances. “The general mood seems to be that fundraising is at stake,” she said. “I think the welfare of the kids is at stake.”
Assuming a Balanced Perspective
Mr. Hacker admitted that he prefers to be aggressive in implementing the guidelines in September but he also is aware that “students have been known to go on strike against food service vendors.” A number of familiar vendors will be missing in the new school term, he announced, including the Hostess brand. Broadly experienced in setting the food agendas for school districts, Mr. Hacker anticipates problems before a smooth routine settles in. If he needed a further reminder, a woman who identified herself as a teacher of public health, said that “the hardest thing you can do is to try and change behavior.”
Speaking of Sports
As the mother of three sons, Ms. Wolkowitz is not a stranger to athletics. She said that the two-tiered plan to educate parents and children in the wonders of nutrition this autumn might work better if the schools emulated sports teams. “If all parents — me included — had a play book, the same as they do in sports, we would know how to do a better job in teaching certain things to our kids,” she said. “But we don’t. Not only do we not have that book, not everyone would agree on the edition of the book that we ought to use.”
