Massachusetts Outlaws School Bake Sales

[Locutus]

 

[petros]

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Cookies are not junk food. These people are nuts.

 

[Locutus]

Massachusetts backs off school bake sale ban



BOSTON (AP) – Cupcakes, brownies and other baked goodies will be spared the chopping block at Massachusetts schools after Gov. Deval Patrick backed down from planned regulations to prohibit the sale of the treats at bake sales during school hours.


"Nobody is interested in banning bake sales," Patrick told reporters Thursday. "We are interested in student nutrition."

The regulations, which had been set to take effect Aug. 1, were approved by state health officials charged with overseeing a new school nutrition law aimed in part at battling childhood obesity.

The ban would have prohibited the sale of sweets in schools during the school day and 30 minutes before and after the start of classes. But parents and some school officials panned the ban, saying it would make it harder to raise needed cash to help pay for activities at the schools.

The regulations also caused a stir at the Statehouse.

Republican state Rep. Brad Hill, who sponsored an amendment in the Massachusetts House to lift the ban, said schools should be allowed to make their own decision on when to hold bake sales. The Massachusetts House adopted the amendment Wednesday striking down the prohibition. The Senate followed suit on Thursday.

Patrick said he would sign the measure lifting the ban, even as he defended public health officials who he said were just trying to follow the intent of the nutrition bill approved by lawmakers.

But the Department of Public Health made it clear that legislative action to lift the regulation wouldn't be necessary.

Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach said that at Patrick's direction the department will reverse the ban before its set to take effect. Auerbach said the ban will stay in effect, however, for goodies sold at school cafeterias during the school day.

Patrick signed the 2010 bill designed to encourage the state's elementary and high schools to offer healthier food choices for their students. The legislation requires schools to provide fruit and vegetable snack options and was designed to limit sugary sodas and sweet snacks along with potato chips and other vending machine offerings.

The law instructed state public health officials to draft and approve regulations needed to enforce the measure.


Massachusetts backs off school bake sale ban

 

[EagleSmack]

Oh well...on to the next stupid law Gov. Patrick!

 

[SLM]

We have cookies again!!!!

 

[Ron in Regina]

Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.

At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.

The Departments of Public Health and Education contend clearing tables of even whole milk and white bread is necessary to combat an obesity epidemic affecting a third of the state’s 1.5 million students. But parents argue crudites won’t cut it when the bills come due on athletic equipment and band trips.




more really common-sensed and outstanding super ideas here:


Parents: Rule’s half-baked - BostonHerald.com

The "door to door candy sales" = $3/box of chocolate covered almonds.
This was manditory when my Son was in school. It was really bad in
High School with minimum quotas...where the kids where issed boxs of
these, & required to submit the total for the almonds (which means that
if they where not able to sell all the boxes...they just bought them, which
meant that the parents just bought them).

My Boy was larger than all of the teachers in his school by grade six. By
Grade nine, he was six feet tall....and by grade eleven, he was a 6'5", 290lb
native (in apearance) with a Mohawk. Going door to door, knocking on doors,
do you know how many boxes of chocolates he was able to sell? Nobody,
unless the knew him, would even open their doors, let alone show that they
had any money.

In all honesty, how many here on this Forum would have even answerred
their door for this kid....who didn't look like a kid, forced to flog these almonds
knowing that it was a manditory debt for his Father if he couldn't sell them
all....or sell any of them at all?

P.S. Before you answer the above question, to yourself, this is a picture of
my Boy when he was in Grade ten (he's the one in the passenger seat).

 

[Liberalman]

Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.

At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.

The Departments of Public Health and Education contend clearing tables of even whole milk and white bread is necessary to combat an obesity epidemic affecting a third of the state’s 1.5 million students. But parents argue crudites won’t cut it when the bills come due on athletic equipment and band trips.




more really common-sensed and outstanding super ideas here:


Parents: Rule’s half-baked - BostonHerald.com

If physical education were a compulsory subject there would be less fat kids in school

 

[Niflmir]

I think one of the biggest ones they need to get rid of is food as a reward for academic achievement. I've been apalled at how many teachers give out suckers to reward kids for doing work that is expected of them.

It also gives them unrealistic expectations for the real world. Out here in the real world, the reward for a job well done is more work.