A mother of a preschooler at Children’s Academy in Aurora, Colo., says her daughter was forbidden from finishing her lunch because it wasn’t “nutritious” enough.
According to a local news station, Leeza Pearson’s five-year-old came home on Friday with the following note from her teacher:
“Dear Parents, it is very important that all students have a nutritious lunch. This is a public school setting and all children are required to have a fruit, a vegetable and a heavy snack from home, along with a milk. If they have potatoes, the child will also need bread to go along with it. Lunchables, chips, fruit snacks, and peanut butter are not considered to be a healthy snack. This is a very important part of our program and we need everyone’s participation.”
(Wait — bread is good for you? Wait — a principle of healthy eating is to make sure to eat bread whenever you eat potatoes? Wait — is this note the dumbest thing I’ve ever read?)
#related#Pearson said she had packed her five-year-old daughter a ham sandwich, a string cheese, and then one item apparently so dangerous that the teacher felt the need to intervene: a four-pack of Oreos.
(The horror! And to think that I used to have Oreos at lunch as a kid without even realizing how serious it was. Guess I’m lucky to have made it out alive.)
The school’s director said she is investigating the note and insisted that it’s not school policy to tell parents what their kids are and are not allowed to eat (how generous!).
The school receives funding through Aurora Public Schools, and the district said it plans to look into the note as well.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review.