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3rd-Grader Busted For Jolly Rancher Possession
theodp writes "A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
The state law does not restrict what the parents may include in a child's lunch, however, the girl's parents did not include the candy, it was given to her by another student (probably a friend)... Still seems very stupid, especially if her parents were to give her other foods lacking in nutritional value.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Her parents think the detention is stupid, tell the school that she won't be staying for it, and there's nothing the school can do about it. Right?
In loco parentis doesn't trump erm, er, whatever the Latin for 'actual parents' is, does it?
Here in the UK when my teacher tried to include me in a class detention because most of the class were misbehaving, my parents told the school that they wouldn't be allowing me to be kept in, and that was the end of it.
FGD 135
All a detention will do is set up an adversarial relationship where the parents will fight the school on everything they try to do from now on.
If that happens, it'll be the best thing that ever happened to the kid. My mom's often adversarial relationship with school administrations kept me out of some truly weird shit.
I remember when I was 10 or 11 some kid being sent home because their parents had sent them to school with a couple of Tylenol because they'd hurt their arm. The Tylenol was deemed to violate the school's zero tolerance on drugs rule.
As I recall, the parents ended up getting an apology from the Principal.
What always amuses me about "zero tolerance" rules in schools is that they'll enforce it against these sorts of idiotic things, but if it's zero tolerance rule against bullying, they go out of their way not to enforce it. It's a classic case, often seen in bureaucracies and police forces, of trying to look tough by taking on easily enforceable bans and basically turning their backs on the tough stuff.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's even stupider than that. The rules the board are citing clearly states that they do NOT restrict what foods parents can give their children.
But the candy didn't come from her parents, it was given to her by another student, who had gotten it from HER parents.
Nobody is suggesting punishing the other child though.
I seem to recall when I was in school, if you brought candy you were ENCOURAGED to share with the class. Now if you share a piece of candy with your friend - your friend gets detention !
Seriously, it's noble for the department to ensure that children get a decent, healthy and nutritional meal at lunchtime. Punishing a child for taking part in the time honored tradition of sharing (especially the recipient) is just outright stupid.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
My mom's often adversarial relationship with school administrations kept me out of some truly weird shit.
Like gym class? I bet it was gym class, wasn't it?
Catechism class, actually. Public school in the boonies, not much oversight, so we had an off-the-books Catholic indoctrination class every week.
Like I said, some truly weird shit.
Shouldn't the eating areas be constructed to facilitate cleaning?
I understand chewing gum bans, but jolly ranchers?
As far as junk food bans, this is getting crazy.
A friend of mine had her daughters zero calorie soda confiscated, yet other kids can keep their kool aid and juice boxes, which are less healthy by many accounts.
The governments solution to bad decisions by parents is to empower teachers and administration to make bad decisions instead.
This is ridiculous.
Kids should eat in an easy to clean area, they should be able to eat whatever the parents decide to send.
>>>Parents have the CHOICE to not send their kids to the local public district schools
Yeah but we don't have a choice to stop sending them our money. Schools hold a monopoly much like Comcast has a monopoly in my home town. The difference is I can choose not to pay Comcast any dollars (and therefore not have internet). I don't have that choice with the schools. Even if I send my kid to Apple Elementary, the public school is still sucking dollars from my wallet.
The money should follow the child just the same way it works in European schools.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I once watched a teacher sprint down a hall, knocked over two girls, because she thought someone was doing drugs. They weren't even eating, the guy was just touching his lip.
Sure, set the rules in your own house. Where DSS is involved, and potential lawsuits could be thrown at the school for failure to provide oversight of nutritional health, and when you have the choice to send your kids to public school or not, hell yes, the school not only has the right, but the obligation to ensure you're feeding you child properly. If you want to give your child soda and candy, do so in your own house. If you think nutrition in general is unimportant, and to fuck what your kid manages to rummage for himself, then i have some unifirmed officers who would love to come by and chat with you...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Schools enforce any arbitrary rules that they want. I ran into 1st amendment problems in high school (freedom of the press). I was told "You can't do that.". I countered that with "The constitution says I can." They responded with "That doesn't matter, you're in our school, we say what the law is."
The local print media picked up the story, and then the school changed it's stance to "As long as his paper does not include libelous or defamatory content." Since we had stuck with running facts (mostly, I was just a teenager) interspersed with opinions, we were safe, but still told not to do it.
Food stuffs aren't constitutionally protected, as far as I know. Constitutionally protected items are ignored as they see fit.
I believe these rules come from school administration having been in their position for years without significant oversight unless an event such as these happen. They continue to extend their rules as they see fit without confirming the legality with anyone with a law background.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
A lot of it depends on the teacher and the god complex that they've grown over their years of teaching. "I am your teacher, this is my classroom, you must do what I say."
I remember in primary school (oh so many years ago) a teacher finally got in trouble for not allowing students to use the restroom during their class. Several students urinated on themselves or in their chairs, because they were afraid of the authority. That teacher had a much higher rate of "accidents" such as this, than any other teacher in the school.
Of course, being 30 years older, if I have to take a leak I'm going to stand up and walk to the restroom regardless of someone elses protests.
But back to the topic at hand, I used to bring candy and soda with me and sell it for profit. :) Nothing was ever said of it. I'd make a few dollars every day. It was a good business. I usually ran out of supplies before lunch, which seemed like a good profit for me. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
And those people are idiots. Zero tolerance is a terrible idea, even in cases where it's effective, because it flies in the face of "letting the punishment fit the crime."
Anyone who advocates such extreme overreactions is not of sound mind, or at the least just doesn't realize that they do things that are "wrong" all the time.
There are so many rules in our society, and they're so convoluted, that nobody can realistically be innocent of everything all the time.
The cynic in me thinks this is intentional, so that any arbitrary citizen can be reprimanded/arrested/fined/given detention on a whim.
A fool and his lamb are worth two in the bush.
The school banned gum and hard candy in order to avoid needing extra janitorial staff and thus to save taxpayer money, the child violated the rule and received a mild punishment. I see no problem with this scenario.
The school is not paid for by the parents' tax dollars alone, the revenue comes from the community as a whole including many non-parents, and as such the community as a whole absolutely has a right to ensure that their money is spent effectively... even if a few prima donna parents want their precious little darling to get special, expensive treatment. Perhaps if those parents paid out of pocket for an extra custodian for the school to clean up after the gum and hard candy messes that made the ban necessary they would have some justification. Pretending those particular parents are the only ones footing the bill for the school is lunacy.
So screw any diabetics who carry a few hard candies in case they go hypoglycemic, I guess.
Here's a novel concept. Instead of banning hard candies, ban making messes and punish those who do. I can't recall the last time a Jolly Rancher climbed out of my pocket and made a mess somewhere -- even when I've forgotten to take him out of my pocket before I do the laundry. Kinda nice that way, sugar dissolves in hot water pretty well, rinses right way and all you have is a small wrapper left over.
Why not go all the way, like we do with other things people don't happen to like, and put the girl on a life time list of offenders who can't live within 2000 feet of a candy store, receive in flight snacks on an airplane or work at any establishment that sells candy, advertises candy or happens to have incidental candy on the premises?
Before that, however, we should string her up someplace and pelt her with all the candy she can't have, just so she knows her proper place in America.
You can play on my lawn anytime. ;)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."