Posted on 11/23/2010 12:41:00 PM PST by Lucky9teen
Chubby elementary school children in Flagstaff, Ariz., have more than just bullies to worry about. If they’re too fat, their school will notify their parents.
Starting in the fall, students in the Flagstaff district will be weighed and measured at school. Students who are found to be overweight, marginally overweight, or underweight will have a letter sent home to their parents, which will include graphs showing a range of appropriate weights for a given age and height.
Barry Hess, the vice chairman for the Arizona Libertarian Party and former Libertarian Party Arizona gubernatorial candidate, describes the Flagstaff school district’s decision to send notes home as “absurd.”
“I’m surprised that parents aren’t coming out against this with pitchforks and saying, ’shut up, stop ruining our kids,’” Hess told The Daily Caller.
Hess could not believe that parents of children in the Flagstaff school district would accept this new policy.
“This is an attempt [by the school district] to take over everything except responsibility for the child,” Hess told TheDC. “This is not providing an education, and the district is completely overstepping its boundaries here. It’s none of the school’s business to try to tell parents what they have to do. They don’t even care about kids being overweight. The school district just cares about breaking down the resistance of parents to an unsubstantiated authority.”
A Flagstaff Unified School District human resources representative, who did not provide a name, said, “this is not really anything new, it’s not a policy, I’m not even sure it can be called a policy. Every child that shows something significant in testing will have a letter sent home.”
An Arizona Daily Star editorial on Nov. 16 suggested that this was, in fact, a new policy. “Beginning this fall the [Flagstaff] district will measure and weigh elementary-school children and send letters to parents whose children are overweight or heading that way,” the paper’s editorial read.
K. Alison Clarke-Stewart, a psychology and social behavior professor at the University of California, Irvine, expressed concern that letters of this nature could potentially harm the self esteem of children.
“The message to parents about their children’s weight should be accompanied by a cautionary note that they should NOT make their children feel worse about themselves. They should not start lecturing the child about being fat,” Clarke-Stewart wrote in an e-mail to TheDC.
If parents do receive a letter regarding their child’s weight, Clarke-Stewart recommended the obvious: the child’s parents would be wise to promote a healthy diet.
Check out the teachers and administrators - evaluate their weights and heights and see how they pan out.
Anything but actually try to educate the students is what you can expect from a Public School run by Union Thugs!!!
Does the school also send home letters advising the parents their child has blue eyes, is pigeon-toed, and has thick hair? /sarc
Brought to you by the same people, no doubt, who believe your 1st grader should know how to put a condom on a cucumber.
Has anyone seen Hannity’s “Man on the Street” or Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking”? These dumbasses can’t even find Utah on a map. Maybe schools ought to start sticking to reading, writing, & ‘rithmitic.
Nosey bastards.
This is just the first step of the government charging you with being an unfit parent and taking your children away from you. These people need to be brought down, hard.
Wow, next they will start reporting bad grades to their parents or something intrusive like that.
If schools are going to start sending letters home, then parents need to start sending letters to schools...
Schools that are found to be over concerned with telling the parents how to parent their children, unconcerned with actually educating the children, or indoctrinating children with liberal propaganda will have a letter sent from the parents, which will include graphs showing a range of appropriate curriculums for a given age and grade.
I think he hit the nail squarely on the head with that statement.
Most of these fat kids parents are just as fat as the kids. What purpose is the letter going to do? More stupidity and interference from bureaucrats.
If my child was in that school district, I would get a directory of the teachers and send them each an opinion or rating of their mental health, their weight issues, their ability to get along with others, fashion sense, ability to get and/or stay married as well as a graph on how attractive/unattractive they are. And God help them if they are involved in any scandal. I would think their neighbors and church would deserve information on that as well. And pictures too.
You can bet this will be mostly children that fall into what most people consider normal ranges. Because these health nazis want everybody rail thin like our so called prez. Not every child who is chubby grows up to be heavy as an adult. Yes some do, but not all.Also there are a lot of Hispanic children in Arizona - they tend to be a little heavier and shorter. Black children and white children of German and Scandinavian heritage are big boned. Asian children a little shorter, some Indian tribes are naturally heavy set are they going to take all those ethnic factors into account ? My guess is no and a lot of children are going to be really miserable because of this.And ethnicity aside some people are just big. I wonder how football coaches are going to enjoy trying to coach underweight malnourished kids. It’s only a matter of time before cps tries to take kids for this. Oh and think of the divorce lawyers. Daddy gave him an ice cream, mommy cooks with to much greases!!!!
But not if they’re sneaking their daughter across state lines for an abortion.
“She not fat. She’s pregnant.” - parent
“Oh, then that’s okay.” - School
But not if they’re sneaking their daughter across state lines for an abortion.
“She not fat. She’s pregnant.” - parent
“Oh, then that’s okay.” - School
greases = grease. Maybe I shouldn’t type when I’m mad.
(.) skinny
( . ) fat
( . )Obese
Yeah, normal for 2010 standards but compared to kids 30 years ago they are obese..and way too many kids are little porkers today.
That being said the school needs to butt out and keep the kids weight under the parents authority...or lack of if that is their choice. Teach the three r's and that's it.
Much better measure would be to put all kids through real PE test and send results to parents. I had to do that when I was in school: pull ups, pushups, 10k run and 100m sprint dont remember what the measures were but everyone had to do it. My wife had to run a half marathon up the mountain slope as a part of school PE (but that was in Japan)
Well parents from Flagstaff should go to the schools and personally check out the whole entire administrative and Teaching staff. Check to see the ones who are overweight or obese. Then send letters BACK to THEM telling them when they take action...then and only maybe then...will the parents give the letters THEY received any credibility at all. Go, go, go...check them out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.