Santee School District's Fight Against Childhood Obesity Ignores True Problems

At Tuesday night's , (Tuesday July 19, 2011 at 7:00PM) Administration will once again present revisions to Administrative Regulation 5030 for the Board's input.

At the Administration presented revisions to the Board and after discussion the Board voted 3-2 against the revisions for various reasons.

The key revision presented in June was limiting all rewards, celebrations, or school sponsored activities that include federally regulated non-compliant food to be limited to five times per school year.

The change that was made since then and will be presented at the Tuesday meeting is that it will be limited to "once per month" instead of 5 times per year.

That appears to be the only change made since the last presentation to the Board, despite the fact that School Board President Barbara Ryan was quoted at the meeting on NBC San Diego as saying the problem of childhood obesity is "really equally if not more an issue of exercise".

Let's face it, while our children have "physical education" as part of the daily schedule, in most cases it is nothing more than simply a second recess labeled a different name to meet legal requirements. 

When the Board rejected the proposed wellness policy changes in June, I -as a member of the school districts wellness committee- expected that our committee would begin discussing the issue again when we reconvened in September. 

I had already begun preparing for productive discussions at that meeting by having preliminary talks with the American Heart Association and the San Diego Chargers about implementing the Play 60 program in our school district.   I also spoke with the school district I attended as a child back in Illinois asking them how they are able to incorporate such a complete physical education program--which includes health education. Illinois has always been known as a leader when it comes to physical education in schools. 

Here is the link to my my former grade school's P.E. website (yes they even have their own site for P.E.!) http://oakridgepe.weebly.com/index.html

I urge you to look through the site and realize just where the school district should really focus their efforts instead of a few cupcakes.

In fact, there was no further discussion amongst the wellness committee members.  For some reason, rather than stepping back and really taking a comprehensive look at issues and solutions--including focusing on exercise which the School Board President stated was equally if not more the problem-- the school district simply made the minor change from 5 per year to once per month and are rushing to put it back in front of the Board at just the second meeting since this was previously discussed.

Another area I previously pointed out that the school district should look at is their own cafeteria.  I argued that the district should remove chocolate milk from the daily menu.  I pointed out that there is as much or more sugar and calories in an equal portion of Coke, yet the district provides it to our children.

The Los Angeles Unified School District just made headlines by voting to remove all flavored milk from the schools.  If Los Angeles can do it, why can't Santee?  Sure, the current group of students may grumble about it, but it will be short lived.  The more important part is you start teaching your young children just starting school to drink white milk from the start because they don't have the option of chocolate.  If the district is truly serious about the attack on childhood obesity, then why is chocolate milk still going to be served daily?

I absolutely agree with the school district that our school menu meets all federal guidelines.  The problem is our federal guidelines are horrible.  Getting a D in class meets the "guidelines" for passing.  If all of our students start earning D's is that going to be fine with the district because "it meets the guidelines for passing"?  That's very unlikely, so why isn't the same attitude taken with the food that they provide our children? 

More importantly what about the habits that the school district is helping to develop in our children.  Look at the lunch menu that is served.  Pizza EVERY week.  When NBC San Diego showed up at Rio Seco to shoot footage for their news coverage did anyone notice the food choices on the trays that day?  Pizza sticks with marinara sauce or my personal favorite nacho chips with a cheese cup. 

Really?  How many parents out there would serve nacho chips and cheese to our children and call it lunch?  

I urge anyone who reads this to not only comment here, but to attend the Board Meeting tomorrow night (Tuesday) and speak.  It's at the Douglas E. Giles Educational Resource Center located at 9619 Cuyamaca Street (next to Rio Seco).  Meeting starts at 7:00 PM.   Arrive early and fill out a speaker card stating you want to address AR5030 and then you will be called up to speak to the Board and Administration. 

Even if you don't agree with keeping cupcakes for children's birthday's, I think you will agree the district should be focusing elswhere.  Let your voice be heard.

I do believe that we can find ways to be healthier.  But I believe the school district owes it to the children as well as parents to focus on much more important issues than cupcakes for birthday celebrations.  Tell us how you are going to remove chocolate milk from the daily menu.  Tell us how you are going to improve the quality of the lunches served daily.  Tell us how you are going to incorporate Physical Education into the students daily schedule.  REAL Physical Education, not just a recess in disguise.  Tell us how you are teaching them Health Education and teaching them good eating habits.  Tell us all of these things. 

Then and ONLY then tell us about removing cupcakes from birthday celebrations.