Posted on 02/15/2012 11:11:57 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.
NC Pre-K (before this year known as More at Four) is a state-funded education program designed to “enhance school readiness” for four year-olds.
The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.
The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn’t eat a vegetable.
The mother says her daughter doesn’t like vegetables and – like most four year olds – will only eat them at home under close supervision.
In an interview with the Civitas Institute the mother said “I can’t put vegetables in her lunchbox. I’m not a millionaire and I’m not going to put something in there that my daughter doesn’t eat and I’ve done gone round and round with the teacher about that and I’ve told her that. I put fruit in there every day because she is a fruit eater. Vegetables, let me take care of my business at home and at night and that’s when I see she’s eating vegetables. I either have to smash it or tell her if you don’t eat your vegetables you’re going to go to bed.”
The mother added, “It’s just a headache to keep arguing and fighting. I’ve even wrote a note to her teachers and said do not give my daughter anything else unless it comes out of her lunchbox and they are still going against me and putting a milk in front of her every day.
“Friday she came home and said ‘Mom, they give me vegetable soup and a milk,’” said the mother.
“So I went to the cafeteria to make sure she had no fee and it’s not being charged to her account yet,” she continued, ” but what concerned me was that I got a letter from the principal and it says students who do not bring a healthy lunch will be offered the missing portions which may result in a fee from the cafeteria. So if I don’t stay on top of her account on a weekly basis there’s that opportunity that charges could be put on her account and then if I let it go too far then it’s like I’m going to have a big battle.”
The principal of West Hoke Elementary, Jackie Samuels, says none of the children’s parents were asked to pay for the school food. While the parents may not have to pay, it was still an expense for the school to provide the extra food. A phone call to the Hoke County Schools Superintendent to inquire as to how much additional expense this would impose on the school was not returned.
The mother, who lives in Fayetteville, sent a statement to state Rep. G.L. Pridgen (R-Robeson) detailing her complaint. Pridgen says he was shocked to hear it. Pridgen has since learned this is a nationwide practice based on federal guidelines.
An assistant to Pridgen says the girl’s grandmother was also upset and asked, “This isn’t China, is it?”
The government inspector was from the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised program at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The program gives schools a grade based on standards that include USDA meal guidelines enforced by the N.C. Division of Early Childhood Development.
The nutrition standards for pre-K lunch require milk, two servings of fruit or vegetable, bread or grains and a meat or meat alternative. The school didn’t receive a high grade from the January assessment because the home-made lunches didn’t meet those guidelines. The mother points out the only thing on that list her daughter’s home lunch didn’t have was milk, so she doesn’t understand why the girl was given a complete school meal as a supplement.
The mother says her next step is to sit down with the principal and if nothing is done then she plans to go to the school board.
It has become apparent that they are hell bent on making sure that everyone is dependent on the government.
That is the communist goal, by the way, to make sure you can get NOTHING (employment, food, healthcare, housing, etc) unless it comes from “the party”, ie, from the government.
My question is - why isn’t this “government inspector”’s name, picture, and contact information plastered all over the internet.
The next step will be forced exercise as it is good for the body. Wonder how the left will feel about being forced to join with their neighbors each morning for 30 minutes of good exercise. Health care will be expensive so everyone must be healthy. I see it coming.
——That moron “actor” who played Meathead on All in the Family (Rob Reiner) tried to put an initiative on the ballot here in California a couple of years ago that would have made it mandatory for 4 year olds to go to the government schools.-——
Having been very active in the school choice movement, and knowing many conservative educational experts, I can tell you that their goal is birth through college. You may see it in your lifetime. And when it’s in place, it will become conventional wisdom.
If parents haven’t rebelled yet, they never will.
When compulsory attendance laws were first instituted in Massachusetts around 1865, children living in Barnstable County were marched into school at gunpoint, over parental opposition.
The real history of American schooling is very interesting. I highly recommend John Gatto’s Underground History of American Education. It’s available to read on-line for free.
One more fun fact. Horace Mann was a phrenologist. And he lied to the Boston school board when he claimed that he had seen a Prussian school in operation. (American schools were based on the socialistic Prussian model.)
Once you know the overarching goal, their incrementalist approach becomes clear.
people are missing the point
inspection is search
no warrant, no lunch search
One of our daughters homeschools - they all love it.
She is lucky to live where there are 2 home school support organizations. One is Christian. Each offers tutorials in many subjects. And fun things, like all-homeschool skating in the rink, once a month. And monthly dances, with very strict rules.
The tutorial teachers, are often the qualified parents.
Or someone from ‘outside’ is hired. Each tutorial has a fee.
Our granddaughters have taken science, art, choir, beginning composition, often held in church classrooms - churches of home school families.
Besides teaching her kids the 3 R’s, our daughter teaches art in her home. About 5 elementary age kids go to her home for about 90 minutes, and together with her 3, they fill the dining room table.
Art is not her degree, but homeschool curriculum is so vast and outstanding, one just follows the plan, which can include, in the case of art, the reading by the ‘teacher’ about an artist, watching a DVD of said artist, and the creating of something either painted, markers, clay, whatever.
The kids cart around an art folio, with their own supplies. The ‘teacher’ can back up the supplies, of course.
In this circle of homeschoolers, the other mothers take a turn at teaching art.
Daughter’s husband taught economics to high school kids. He is a fee only Certified Financial Planner with a UCLA Economics degree.
He used space in a modest office of a homeschool dad, and the course was half a year.
The best way to get started is to be mentored by a homeschool parent.
Our daughter has homeschooled for 4 years, and she is still mentored, because each succeeding grade is new, and those who have been there, make good mentors.
Hope this insight gives you some ideas. You never know what can develop when there’s excitement to at least try!
——: What should parents do who are “weak” in some specific part of the curriculum such as geography or, say, grammar?-——
Don’t compare yourself against an imaginary ideal.
Teachers are of average intelligence, and they’re “teaching,” or really, talking at 20 children. You will be tutoring one or two children. The greatest teacher in the world can’t compete with a dedicated tutor, motivated by love. You will be able to accomplish in two hours what teachers can’t accomplish in a full day.
I know. My wife and I have done it for 11 years. Believe it or not, it’s a cakewalk.
Begin at age 4 or 5 with a phonics book, like Alphaphonics. If you spend 15-30 minutes per day for 30 days, your child will be able to read Dr. Seuss books on his own. And that’s the hardest thing you’ll have to do.
Yes, in 20 hours of instruction, your child will be able to read on his own. Both of ours did. It’s pretty typical.
After that your options are unlimited. I prefer unschooling, but in a compromise with my wife, agreed to a rigid pre-packaged curriculum.
Our kids needed one-on-one kitchen table instruction for 2-3 hours per day, up to third grade.
After that, they simply looked up their daily assignment, and completed it, before my wife rolled out of bed. They knew that they could play after they finished their work, so they were motivated.
They will need help in HS, in subjects like math and English, but there are countless supplemental resources out there —many for free.
So don’t let that stop you.
Both of our girls are a year ahead of their age/grade, and tested well on their SATS.
Unfortunately, the oldest wants to go to college, ruining an otherwise perfect record.
LOL!
I'd like to echo Thomas' post. Our daughter is already reading at 3 years old. It's easy to do, just takes a little patience. There are excellent books out there that can help you with your weak areas. For instance, not too great with math? Get Saxon books. You may not be much better at math afterwards, but I guarantee you as long as you crack the whip on your kids to do the lessons, they'll be experts.
Oh, for beginning reading we've been using the free lessons on Starfall. Our daughter loves it and plays with it all the time.
Then they too will have a world of trouble on their hands.
We aren’t Syria yet. When they spill blood, its on. The only authority they can have is what we cede them. We have ceded too much as it is.
Giving in and shrugging to their authority will make us Britain.
I am not quite ready to do that yet.
The view in china is either the school feeds everyone the same lunch if that is the deal with that school, or kids are expected to bring their own lunch or they don’t eat because in many rural schools there there are no lunch programs. The lunch program is mom and dad making a meal for the kid to eat at lunch.
Thanks for the ping!
The closer you get to government the less free you are. This state run head start program demonstrates this very thing. A four year old at home, in the Best of Families with plenty of money, could easily have a lunch that included no vegetables!!! Four year old’s don’t often like many vegetables. A balanced diet for kids that young is measured in a week. Their meals and days are often not balanced. It’s ok.
And sheesh, the state was requiring NUGGETS? Helloo? Processed meat by products mixed with neurotoxic msg and coated with inferior gluten crust?? Might as well feed them friskies kibble. Nuggets are kid kibble, filled with similar addictive taste enhancers.
Stay away from government programs for your kids.
Better yet, the next day 20 children are removed from the school and 20 parents filed 20 lawsuits demanding proof that the chicken nuggets provided by the school followed government guidlines.
OK, I get it now, the grandmother said it. Well, she ought to be an authority. Well, maybe she is not. She did not have the authority to pack the child’s lunch. Seems only the authorites in the U.S. have that authority and in China they can eat whatever they darn well please and probably do eat just about anything.
Now there is a thought for you, imagine if the parents had sent their child to school with unshelled shrimp or black snails.
Tho China has introduced many free-market revisions into their economy and life, it is still a centralized command economy. 2 examples... People are being told where to move to new outlying cities built by central command—Fact. Churches must register and their is still religious prosecution—Fact.
The Chinese government reserves the right to dictate foods being grown (fact) , why not consumed?
Thank you grammar police. Again MY WIFE is doing the schooling. On internet forums I do not proof read or spell check.
Regards,
There are many fronts to fight them on. These euelected bureaucrats believe that parents are stupid and impediments to their ownership of the children they were hired to educate. We allowed that to happen and I was as guilty as anyone else. Heck, we paid to educate these people to make our kids better.
Slowly they took more and more of the position they they knew better than us and they would make the “right” decisions and they would “control” the kids. They would lock down schools and not allow kids to leave for whatever imaginged danger. They would decide that your kids would bring 2 or 3 boxes of pencils so they could be given out to all the kids. They decided that only the harsh words they approved of could be spoken, no one else’s.
Enough. Yeah you can withdraw your kids. But somebody else’s kids are being ruined and abused and you are paying for it anyway.
But as I see it and I regret having to say it, we have to fight them or we are simply lost and more importantly so are our kids. Our freedoms are gone and so are theirs. This incident is another drop on a bucket getting ready to spill over.
But as I see it and I regret having to say it, we have to fight them or we are simply lost and more importantly so are our kids. Our freedoms are gone and so are theirs. This incident is another drop on a bucket getting ready to spill over.
You are right on Adder. Now that I think about it, it is "other peoples kids", now grown, that will be the ruination of this great Country if we do not stand up and fight them at every opportunity.
When college students rebelled in the 60's, when our military was treated with open disdain and hatred by the same, when hippies and eastern philosophies came in and, because of Freedom, thrived without contest, the decline accelerated
I know that is a simplistic revue of the 60's, but what I'm intending to point out is, "we" did nothing then, we can ill afford to do nothing now.
No actually, I think there are autonomous regions in China freer than the nightmare nanny state of North Carolina.
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