How to convince the school to have non-food birthday clelbrations

Our school's policy is due to our new principal. She is on the warpath against junkfood (her own crusade, with nothing to do with me) However, I am always supportive and talk up this policy to other parents.
Here is the policy:
There are no birthday "celebrations". The birthday child gets to choose a book to be read to the class. At the discretion of the teacher, the birthday child may distribute non-food goody bags as the class is dismissed. This is because birthday parties were eating into "instructional minutes".
There are 3 scheduled holiday parties: Halloween, Winter Holidays, and Valentine's Day. Food may be served, but it must not be junk food. Popcorn, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers are considered acceptable. Cake and candy not acceptable. She had trouble enforcing this one! The teachers rebelled... [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/frown.gif[/img]
Food rewards of any kind are not allowed. This includes candies given in class or pizza parties for good behavior. Instead, rewards were bookmarks and bowling.
I love this policy!!! But she is fighting an uphill battle and it is difficult to enforce.
Cathy
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Mom to 7 yr old PA/TNA daughter and 3 1/2 yr old son who is allergic to eggs.
[This message has been edited by Momcat (edited August 01, 2006).]

i probably won't ask for non-food bday celebrations (not sure why...just don't want to be the first to bring it up) but i would LOVE it if our school would go that route. that would solve so many problems for those with fa's in school. plus, what kid needs more junk food, fat grams and empty calories during the scool day??? i would totally welcome it if our school decided to do this.

Quote:Originally posted by Momcat:
[b]Our school's policy is due to our new principal. She is on the warpath against junkfood (her own crusade, with nothing to do with me) However, I am always supportive and talk up this policy to other parents.
Here is the policy:
There are no birthday "celebrations". The birthday child gets to choose a book to be read to the class. At the discretion of the teacher, the birthday child may distribute non-food goody bags as the class is dismissed. This is because birthday parties were eating into "instructional minutes".
There are 3 scheduled holiday parties: Halloween, Winter Holidays, and Valentine's Day. Food may be served, but it must not be junk food. Popcorn, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers are considered acceptable. Cake and candy not acceptable. She had trouble enforcing this one! The teachers rebelled... [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/frown.gif[/img]
Food rewards of any kind are not allowed. This includes candies given in class or pizza parties for good behavior. Instead, rewards were bookmarks and bowling.
I love this policy!!! But she is fighting an uphill battle and it is difficult to enforce.
Cathy
[/b]
Hi Momcat,
Nice to see good policy in our neck of the woods. Does your school happen to have this policy on-line anywhere? If so, I'd be interested in reviewing the link. I know our district is supposedly working on district-wide guidelines re:food in the schools, but no info available to parents as of yet...

Last year was our principal's first year at our school. This policy is not written down as far as I know! However, she is there at every meeting (PTA, etc.) reminding everyone that she wants to eliminate food rewards and junk food. I was surprised that she is getting so much resistance from the teachers. It's like they've forgotten that kids want praise and attention much more than a lollipop (or an eraser for that matter!) She wants them to use privileges as rewards instead of all this junk--stuff like being the door monitor or the person to bring the attendance sheet to the office.
Sorry I can't give you a link!
Cathy

Quote:Originally posted by qdebbie1:
[b]Keep in mind it is not acceptable for me to allow my child to get a "special" treat while the entire class enjoys something else. I do not allow the school to treat him like he is "special." He is to be treated as much as possible like every other child without pa. They do not have a right to a cupcake at school either.
[/b]
?
Help me understand this part. Even if the treat being served is pa safe you would not be ok with other students enjoying that treat while your child is eating his own safe treat?
Just looking for clarification.

Please see "Letter sent out from SD to all parents" under Schools.
I'm not sure how this came about, really, but I'm glad. (It was handed down from the State Dept. of Ed., not just our SD.)

A mom at our school is fighting this battle....she wants birthdays to be non-food, and suggested the special book idea. I haven't heard how it went, but I know that a *lot* of people heard about her request and are pretty angry over it.
This was a battle I did not want to fight - as long as the birthday treat isn't something with nuts, I don't care, I send my son his own treat. The only thing I ever fought about was when he was in Kindergarten, they had a Star of the Week program. Typically during each child's week their mom sent in a special treat; while a once in a while birthday didn't bother me, having to worry about sending in something special (and comparable!) weekly for ds seemed too much, and I was successful in getting them to make this a non food program. My argument/reason was that I didn't want ds to feel excluded on a weekly basis the entire school year (random birthdays and holiday parties were enough, thank you!)
Momcat, your principal sounds like a gem. When I met with our principal last year about ds's 504, I asked if food could be "kept to a reasonable minimum" at parties (not excluded entirely, just not to go overboard with ice cream sundaes and the like) and to have teachers refrain from giving out candy as rewards. He told me that it was "up to the class mom and the teacher". Hello, so class parents and teachers have no accountability to anyone? No rules? I plan on following that up with the superintendent when school starts next month [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/frown.gif[/img]

csc: omg! my kids get so much junk food at school too (even the "safe" stuff is pretty much garbage). this happens EVERY SINGLE DAY of the schoolyear; nevermind bdays, holidays and other special celebrations.
you know what i was thinking today??? weather permitting, it would be so cool if the class could have 15 or 20 minutes of extra recess time in honor of a child's bday (or the same amount of time in the gym or library or some other activity room not being used at the time). not only would they be avoiding junk food that no one needs, they'd also be celebrating with a little exercise and fresh air. what kid wouldn't love that??
i also like the idea of the class hearing a special story/book (like someone here mentioned) and i'm sure there are all kinds of other things that they could do - play games, take turns saying something nice about the bday kid, etc...
i still think they could have a little memento to take home like a party bag of nonfood items that the bday child wanted to share with friends. my kids always prefer the pencils, erasers, tiny toys, etc.. over the food items anyhow.