Teacher Told To "Cease & Desist" Bringing Fruit/Healthy Food To Class Or Be Fired

A Teacher Crusades for Better School Food and Gets Stomped

Mendy Heaps, a stellar English teacher for years, had never given much thought to the food her seventh-graders were eating. Then her husband, after years of eating junk food, was diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure and suddenly the french fries, pizza and ice cream being served in the cafeteria at rural Elizabeth Middle School outside Denver, Col., took on a whole new meaning.

Heaps was roused to action. She started teaching nutrition in her language arts classes. She bombarded colleagues, administrators and the local school board with e-mails and news clippings urging them to overhaul the school menu. She even took up selling fresh fruits and healthy snacks to the students on her own, wheeling alternative foods from classroom to classroom on a makeshift “fruit cart,” doling out apples for a quarter.

Finally, the school’s principal, Robert McMullen, could abide Heaps’ food crusade no longer. Under threat of being fired, Heaps says she was forced to sign a personnel memorandum agreeing to cease and desist. She was ordered to undergo a kind of cafeteria re-education program, wherein she was told to meet with the school’s food services director, spend part of each day on lunch duty recording what foods the students ate, and compile data showing the potential economic impact of removing from the menu the “grab and go” foods Heaps found so objectionable.

“It was humiliating to stand in the cafeteria in front of the kids and the other teachers every day ‘collecting data,’ ” Heaps says. “I called it my penance.”

more:
http://www.theslowcook.com/2010/04/06/a-teacher-crusades-for-better-school-food-and-gets-stomped/

Corpamerica speaks. You obey.

So just sit down you noisy proles, STFU, and eat your genetically mutant, chemically-sozzled, high-fructose corn syrup saturated food-product facsimle rations.

school probably get some kick back to push the sugary treats.

to perform a study of the economic impact of a school full of kids with Diabetes and other obesity related illnesses.

What a fucking idiot that person is.

Thanks for posting. Hopefully more and more will stop eating so much crap.

Do we really live in a society where a school employee can't sell unregulated food to children on school property during the school day?


Bravo to her for campaigning for better lunches, because the current offerings are horrendous. But she must have known that her attempt to go into business for herself would get her into trouble.

Our society is descending into total corruption. Instead of worrying about schools being in the hands of corporations poisoning children for profit, we should worry about a teacher making a dollar for selling an apple?

Can any person off the street just waltz into the building and start selling food, even if it's apples @ 25¢ or the like?

Her campaign is noble; her strategy was foolish and self-defeating. In some workplaces, that behavior would be grounds for termination.

Why not let anyone at all into the building to sell unregulated, unauthorized food to school kids?

Apples are $3-4/lb here IN SEASON.

The underlying point remains intact, though: a school employee simply shouldn't be selling unauthorized food to school kids on school property during school hours.

Any other concerns, though legitimate, are subordinate to this fact.

I don't have a problem with them being passed around for a token pittance.

She erred by failing to secure permission beforehand, and she likewise erred by going from classroom to classroom. If the school has any policy covering this sort of activity, then she almost certainly violated that policy. The liability is simply too great, and the teacher had no authority to make that decision on behalf of the school.


Hey, I don't think that she was stuffing razor blades into the things, or that she was tainting them with Snow White-style poisons. And I'll state once again that I applaud her desire to improve the quality of school lunches.

But there's no reason at all why she shouldn't have gone through proper channels. If she opted not to do so because she feared possible repercussions, well, she's facing those repercussions now.

It is indeed appalling that an employee of the school would knowingly violate school policy and give/sell unauthorized food to school kids on school property during school hours.

What baffles me is that there's any debate about it at all. She was clearly in the wrong, and the school is clearly in the right. Case closed.


Once again, that doesn't mean that her cause isn't noble; it simply means that she deliberately chose the wrong way to go about it.


I'd also be interested to learn who, exactly, is "frothing at the mouth over this." No one in this thread has criticized her more sharply than I have, and I'm certainly not frothing, not at the mouth or otherwise. Whose reaction strikes you as rabid in its intensity? :shrug:

(poisoned and/or razor blades)

I agree her motives were noble - and the punishment stupid because the school should not have been focused on maintaining the profitability of the food service. That said, for safety reasons you can't pick and choose people allowed to run a vending operation in school based on what you presume their motives to be.

In addition, the health services have documentation regarding any health-related dietary restrictions. If that teacher had sold food to a student who was not permitted to eat that particular kind of food the consequences could have been disastrous (think peanut butter contamination and life threatening peanut allergies, as the most obvious example).

Anyone selling food in schools (aside from authorized club fundraisers) has a contract which makes them liable if there are food safety issues - she had no contract addressing that activity. It is much easier to get compensation when the contractor has agreed up front to be liable for anything that goes wrong rather than trying to prove fault after the fact.

A more appropriate punishment would have been to put her to work creating a plan to add more healthy foods to the food service selection, how to encourage students to make better selections from what is there, or even writing a paper about compliance with health department regulations for sale of foods.

Fear of something bad is not proof that the something bad happened.

Poison: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/2872215.html Although the perpetrator targeted a specific child - his son, he also handed out poisoned candy to at least 4 other children, fortunately none of whom actually ate the candy - Snopes calls this false because of targeting a specific child, but does not dispute that three random children, as well as as his daughter. I doubt the other three children would call poisoned candy an urban legend.

Razor blades: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/needles.asp - Snopes agrees this is not an urban legend.

I don't see why this point is being debated at all; a school employee was admittedly engaged in the vending of unauthorized food to school kids on school property during school hours.

Regardless of the validity of her concerns, and regardless of how little money she recouped for her efforts, she was wrong to go about it the way she did.

Regardless of her motive or profit margins, even if she decided to donate all the money to the school, she must have known this wasn't going to fly.

Seriously, don't you think it looks a little whacky to go around pushing an apple cart througg the school? Were they at least organic apples?

I wish she had crusaded for changes without actually selling food.

I'm sympathetic to the teacher, and she should certainly lobby her administration and school board to adopt healthier lifestyles for the kids, but this her behavior is several degrees over the top.

we NEED teachers like this and our children need better nutrition at school.

And if she were forced to collect data about potential economic impact of removing crap from the cafeteria menu, she could then collect date showing the economic impact of NOT removing the crap. Costs in terms of obesity, childhood diabetes, poor performance due to poor nutritional uptake etc.

And then she can present a balanced set of data.

I am fairly confident the facts and statistics would support removing the crap and restoring whole foods to kids' diets.

Grades might very well improve a bit too along with kids health.

Her error was in declaring herself a food vendor and then plying her wares from classroom to classroom, presumably during school hours. At the very least, she should have sought permission/authorization to do so beforehand.

I would imagine that the school's policy entails some kind of restriction on exactly this sort of behavior. However noble her intent, she was wrong to go "door to door" offering unauthorized food on school property during school hours.

This strikes me as a pretty simple and self-evident point. The fact that I applaud her desire to improve school lunches doesn't change this.

As a lapsed vegetarian and whole foods eater, I find it really hard to find worthwhile eats while on the road. Unless i bring my own with me.

Hopefully there will be more alternatives in the near future.

Oh, Kashi is advertising on tv now. That stuff is more nutritionally balanced.

The proper--though difficult--route is to get responsible vendors of healthy foods into the mix at the administrative level. That way they can effect wide-reaching change with full and unambiguous legitimacy.

Believe me--I'm horrified by the state of public school lunches. Any effort to put good food in front of children is a good effort, but it needs to go through the proper channels, alas.

to do an economic impact study of the effects of bad nutrition.

Sounds likes she's motivated.

What an awful teacher providing fresh fruit for students to eat. :eyes:

What is this world coming to?

...while compiling data to prove that not only can healthier food be more economical to the school, but also how nutritionally bankrupt the current offerings are compared to real food.

This may be an opportunity for her to prevail.

:patriot:

Hell, she may even be able to write a dissertation and get her doctorate! Got lemons? Make lemonade! LOL!!

who might welcome a chance to vend in school cafeterias.

Which would be send these administrators packing.

:mad:

hell to the principal to get the pop machines removed. It worked.

:toast:

I am very interested in school nutrition and new programs for improving the quality of lunches. But by the same token, I don't believe it is the teacher's place to proselytize to kids, and definitely a no-no to sell food to them, no matter how nutritious.

Work with the administration in her building and her district to make changes in the school lunch program? Sure (even though that's an incredibly tough row to hoe). But to be walking around preaching and agitating and selling--that is beyond the pale, imo.

Kids are extremely impressionable (even in seventh grade). I had to deprogram my daughter after she was exposed to the DARE anti-drug program in 5th grade--because she took it all so seriously she became hysterical when we drank coffee (a drug, as she was told) and became positively fear-stricken when we would serve wine at a dinner party ... convinced we would all die.

I'm also not sure that it is kosher for a language arts teacher to be using her class time to discuss food--unless you work in grammar and literature into the mix.

:thumbsup:

In Health class, it's a fine subject. But in Language Arts, unless you're say, tying it into a discussion of a Wendell Berry novel (and I'd be damned surprised to see a Wendell Berry novel on an seventh-grade reading list), it's off-topic.

You're talking here to the daughter of a dietitian, former long-time member of an organic CSA, a heavy shopper of local and sustainable foods, and a good cook. Don't lecture me about good nutrition or the difference between teaching a subject and proselytizing to a captive audience of 12-year-olds.

So, what ARE the "frazzeled-approved" topics which one may use in learning language arts??

because caffeine & alcohol are drugs.

And I don't think a teacher focusing on good nutrition is "proselytizing." Funny thing about language arts: You can be sneaky & teach other stuff at the same time as grammar & literature. Need to do a lesson on subject/verb agreement? Write up a paragraph or two on the importance of fruits & veggies. Need a lesson on finding nouns? Find a paragraph on the effects of poor eating habits. If you need short stories, you might have to do some searching, but I recall my mom picking up old school readers at used book stores (similar to Dick & Jane) that had story after story about the kids discovering they needed to drink more milk or eat more fruit & how they went about doing that.

dg

They took sodas out of the soda machine. They have a few Gatorade-type drinks for the sports minded, water, and Nestea.

Sooooo, my daughter told me that the school police officer got in trouble recently and was on warning for selling sodas to kids out of his office.

I'm just thinking he should have known better.

If the kids were lining up to buy the healthy stuff, that should send a message to the administration that at least some of the kids WILL EAT healthy food and actually pay for it, so it should be a viable option for the cafeteria or some other school sanctioned "healthy snack shop."

Of course, the teacher was willing to absorb a lot of the overhead (shopping, fronting the money, the vending cart, her time to transact the business, and absorb any losses for unsold food). If the school sold that same apple, they'd probably need to get 75 cents instead of a quarter. Then they'd decide it wasn't profitable enough, and shut it down.

than poor kids who eat the subsidized lunches--I'm sure it's a status symbol to eat the "grab-and-go" expensive fast food that mommy and daddy can afford, rather than the usual (somewhat more nutritious) stuff that the low-income kids eat. You'd think high-income parents would be more educated in terms of nutrition and would demand healthy choices.

:wtf:

Keep the cameras rolling Jamie!

I wouldn't want an employee of mine privately selling any food off a cart on premesis.
The school may be doing this as a liability measure.

She should stick to TEACHING about the nutrition as she was already doing.

I applaud her motivations, and if she can do both at the same time, that's great, but just because she's passionate about nutrition doesn't mean she should be taking up class time unless it's related to the subject matter she's supposed to be teaching.

At present, schools can barely squeak in a few minutes of science or phys ed, thanks in large measure to NCLB. I'd say that teaching-time is at a premium.

Language arts? Write a sentence using these words; apple, chips, soda, either/or. LOTS of ways to do this, like teaching reading at the same time teaching history.

:thumbsup:

the second largest bastion of the conservative republican dunderheads in the state.
Elizabeth is mostly horse ranches. the residences there are all Mc-mansions surrounded by "ranchetts" (large enough for a horse or three but not large enough to be counted as agricultural.)

As a Dem I learned long ago that when doing work out there keep your mouth shut or be fired for simply being a Democrat.

the Fed House rep from there is Mike Coffman.(R) CD-6

just saying

She bombarded colleagues, administrators and the local school board with e-mails and news clippings urging them to overhaul the school menu.

What is "bomabarding"? Once a day? Twice a day? Or ever frigging article/news clippings she could google?

She's right about the food, but she is completely wrong in selling food to the kids. I wouldn't want so health nut teacher selling food to my kid, even if it was just fruit.

The schools lawyers and liability insurance carrier could not possibly approve of a teacher bringing in and selling food to pupils. It would be a major exposure to lawsuits.

I wouldn't want my kids eating random foods brought in (and sold) by a teacher.

If school cafeteria food is so bad for you it's amazing that me and millions of other school students managed to escape the system without being diabetic and obese.

But yeah, I agree completely about her selling random food off a cart. BAD way to attempt to implement an otherwise noble idea.

I'll be the first one to say that cafeteria food probably isn't the best thing you could be eating, but neither is it the worst. I'd say it's about average.

In the case of the millions who did not come out of school healthy, you've got to look at the total package, not just what the school was feeding them.

But they are not without blame either. No one factor alone is to blame, but every party (parents, individuals, schools, industries) has a chance and a choice to become a more positive element in a child's life.

First of all, you can't have teachers just selling anything off a cart at school to students willy-nilly. What's next? Amway? Mary Kay? Teabag jewelry? I see nothing wrong with her working nutrition into what she's required to teach whenever possible as long as the students are performing adequately in those subjects. I'm thrilled that she wants to be a passionate voice for her students lives. She just needs a little redirection and I hope someone is willing to help her accomplish that.

As to the school, BOOOOOOOO on you for worrying more about a hypothetical loss of revenue than your students health. BOOOOOOOO on you for punishing the teacher in front of the kids she is trying to save.

Because as soon as the child of a litigious parent gets sick, they're going to blame the teacher but sue the shcool. I don't think the school is overly concerned about the nickles and dimes they lose in cafeteria fees but the potential for massive loss from lawsuits.

Also, what, exactly, is it that this teacher is "saving" these kids from?

Then her husband, after years of eating junk food, was diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure and suddenly the french fries, pizza and ice cream being served in the cafeteria at rural Elizabeth Middle School outside Denver, Col., took on a whole new meaning.

after years of eating junk food, was diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure

cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure

I do not want that in my lifetime, not if I can help it.

now eat your processed food product and be happy. :sarcasm:

Looks like pretty standard fare.

There is a salad bar almost every day as well as assorted fresh fruits on most days.

Where did the rubbery green jello go?

"Healthy fries" are served on 7 days in April.

The parents should be making sure their kids make the righ choices. Its available to them.

and one thing I've learned over the years is you just can't fix stupid.

"and compile data showing the potential economic impact of removing from the menu the “grab and go” foods Heaps found so objectionable."

What are the economic costs of taking money from taxpayers to provide food that may not provide the best nutrition? Does it have a negative impact on learning, or on test scores? If they really aren't providing the healthiest food, are there economic costs from the children getting sick? How much salt is there compared to what she offered from her cart, and how many of those kids might have hypertension or weight issues? Are there costs to the wider society after they leave school, after they have been trained to eat foods that might lead to heart disease later, increasing costs to the community, money that could better be spent on kid's education. What about the subsidies paid to provide food which comes from dangerous meatpacking plants and multi-national corporations that have undermined the economy their parents must make a living in. Fast Food Nation, Food Inc, - there are a wealth of ideas which they may not want discussed, once she really gets a start.

Unless her claims of healthier food are not supportable, that principal might wish he had not opened this can of, uh, onion rings.

It doesn't matter if it's about food or some tea bagger nonsense, teachers are hired to teach subjects, not to pontificate on whatever obsessions they may develop.

The way the principal handled it makes sense. If she wants to be a running critic of the choices others make in food, perhaps she can use a lesson that it is their choice, not hers.

He's hitting the same obstacles! Pizza for breakfast is healthy! Chicken & rice made from scratch is not (it needs another bread-starch-to be "healthy"). Chicken/veggie stir-fry with 7 veggies isn't healthy, but burgers & fries (with "optional" salad that no kid takes) is.

Take what you know about nutrition, turn it upside down, & you have the school lunch program's "healthy" menus.

dg

political-economic blackmail! should be illegal. also sounds like a free speech issue to me.

She's an employee of the school, and I'm close to absolutely certain that she must have had to sign some document acknowledging and accepting the policies of the school district, which likely included a mention of what might happen to a person who violates those policies. It's not "political-economic blackmail" at all, and frankly I don't see how you could interpret it that way.

Free speech has absolutely nothing to do with it.

how interesting.

Explain to me how this is a free speech issue, and how a school employee should be entitled to vend unauthorized food to school children on school property during school hours.


Thanks in advance for your wisdom.

I think she is running into a culture war in addition to a nutrition war. Healthy foods puts you in the same category as other lefty types: environmentalists, etc.

I think if Ms. Heaps wants to be an activist, she needs a little training from organizations like Camp Wellstone or its nutritionist equivalent on how to organize for change. I can see how she ran into trouble because she did not think about the social impact of what she was doing on her boss and coworkers, but I can't help but applaud her motivations. She lived through a terrible circumstance with her husband where she was running off to the doctor's and hospitals as well as keeping her family together BY HERSELF and she wanted to try to help students understand the consequences of developing bad habits and how terribly difficult it is to change these things later in life. Having been in the same position as Ms Heaps with my husband due to his poor eating habits, I can fully appreciate how you get to be a fanatic. Just wind me up and I, too, can bore the hell out of anyone around me about nutrition.

She and other teachers have to put up with kids jacked up on junk and all the subsequent parent teacher conferences about why Johnny is misbehaving after lunch.

Ms Heaps is not the only teacher who has put healthy food out for kids. I know of another school administrator who put a vegetable tray out for underprivileged children because THEY WERE HUNGRY and couldn't learn on an empty stomach. I understand folks concerns about unregulated food... but I have seen school sponsored boxes of Florida orange sales in winter. Big question: why isn't the "supplemental" food including a good supply of fruits and vegetables. Why is this crap in the school system at all? Children can't make these decisions by themselves. So the parents are left to monitor their child as to what snacks they are eating in school? Trust me, I know all about having a healthy home and having someone actively work to defeat your efforts until he finds out the hard way!

Ideally, you want the school lunch program to work properly. But, in Ms. Heap's case, it didn't so she took matters into her own hands. I agree with people's points about sales of unregulated food but there are enough bake sales going around that this regulation isn't completely enforced. I fully understand her frustration and why she did what she did. I do understand how she got in trouble by endrunning the system. There are ways of doing things to implement change that really happens and this is not one of them.

My hope for Ms Heaps is that she doesn't give up and instead uses the results of her "study" to further advocate for changes in our nutritional and educational system. I remember when schools and lunch programs were properly funded so that they didn't need to sell crap. It used to be one or two campaigns per year to sell candy bars for band or the football team and, of course, Girl Scout cookies. Not a constant supply. Maybe this means people should pay higher taxes so that the schools are properly funded instead of selling junk to our children! If some children aren't eating too much junk, that means the school raises less money! Think about it! Those diabetic children with high blood pressure are subsidizing the education budget! Cut down on their spending and you cut out a chunk of the school budget!

I think she should go to Camp Wellstone and learn to organize for change. I think she needs to organize parents to support her efforts. There's a whole bunch of tactics about coalition building that she needs to learn and then she should start round two of her campaign for better nutrition in school.

I think that having Ms. Heaps in the school cafeteria is like having the fox in the chicken house. I hope she keeps her data at home so it can't be confiscated! I hope she publishes articles on her experience in the school cafeteria. I hope she finds out about contracts with 'good old boys" who are wired in to supply junk food to the school and exposes them. I wonder how much of the school lunch has been put out for competitive bidding like it should be! I hope Ms. Heaps also gets in touch with the school nurse to find out what the rates of diabetes and heart disease are in her school and how these have changed over time. I hope she writes to Michelle Obama about her experience in trying to bring fruits and veggies to school.

Go Ms. Heaps!

I'd like to clarify something about this part, though:The fact that it's unregulated is a major part of the problem, yes, but of equal importance is the fact that the food was unauthorized. That is, in the case of a bake sale, the school authorizes the sale of those foods, and I wouldn't be surprised if--in today's world--some kind of contract has to be signed by the school and the vendors.

no vendors... volunteer labor and donation of baked goods. No regulation of the brownies

If so, are they done with the permission of the school? If the school gives permission, then that's the authorization.


Additionally, I believe that bake sales are becoming less and less common, as groups become more and more aware of the potential liability. Certainly they don't go on around here.

:puke:

should allay all doubts. They want people fat, dumb and unhealthy from childhood.

and discuss while they work. :)

Crusaders have no place in our schools this woman sounds like a nutjob, This is america suposedly the land of the free one would hope that would include the freedom to eat what you want without being brow beaten by your coworkers or teachers.