Parents entrust schools in ensuring their child’s education, grooming, and nurturing. This is why parents are always in a state of comfort when their kids are at school, knowing that he or she is under an amazing environment and great care.
This, however, was not the case at a school in Colorado, when a young girl came back home starving, as her school did not let her enjoy the food her mother packed.
It is safe to say, seeing your child return from school completely drained and hungry would strike a nerve for parents, and that is exactly what happened as this issue ignited heated debates and discussions on a school recognizing its boundaries. The matter escalated as topics of children’s health, nutrition, and the relationship between parents and teachers were dragged into the conversation too.
When Leeza Pearson packed her daughter’s lunch in the morning, she didn’t expect to be attacked for her choice of snacks. This teacher overstepped some serious boundaries when she included a note with Leeza’s daughter’s lunch that ruined the child’s day and infuriated this mother.
This was not “any other day,” as to Leeza’s surprise, her daughter, Natalie had not eaten her lunch at school and came home on a drained stomach.
Still confused about why her daughter did not eat her favorite lunch, Leeza opened her lunch box to find the untouched food and a peculiar note. Apparently, the teacher was tampering with the little girl’s lunch by removing the Oreo cookies since the teacher did not think the treat was healthy enough for the little girl to eat while at school.
She could not, however, get her head around what was written in the note, leaving her in a state of great confusion.
Here’s what the note read:
“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 healthy 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.”
Natalie getting into the Aurora Children’s Academy was great for Leeza, who was taking classes at Denver’s Metropolitan State University. The Aurora Children’s Academy is a prestigious preschool in Colorado that accommodates more than 150 kids at a time. By enrolling Natalie in the academy, Leeza felt like she was preparing her daughter for her future, not hindering it.
What Pearson thought of as a healthy lunch for her daughter turned out to be the exact opposite and resulted in an exploit no parent should have to experience. No parent thinks they’ll ever endure the backlash from the school they’re actively choosing to send their child to.
Patty Moon, a spokeswoman for the Aurora Public Schools, which provides funding for some of the children to attend private preschool, said a note in the lunchbox is not supposed to be standard practice.
“From our end we want to inform parents but never want it to be anything punitive,” Moon said.
“They say I can’t decide what to feed her but then they sometimes feed her junk food,” Pearson said. “Why am I being punished for Oreos when at other times I am asked to bring candy?”
The child was offered an alternative snack, Moon said. But Pearson said this was not the case and her child came home hungry.
“She is not overweight by any means and I usually try to feed her healthy,” Pearson said, noting her daughter’s lunch also included a sandwich and some string cheese. “It’s not like I was offering cookies to the entire class and it’s not like that was the only thing in her lunch.”
Watch the video report below for more details:
Source: AWM
They should be told to “MYOFB”They have no right to look in a students lunch. If a teacher ever tried to look in my lunch at school they would have drawn back a bloody stump. Whats next ? Do they want to to look in her underwear? This is a little too personal.