Colorado teacher punished for her better-school-lunch crusade

I urge you to read about the battle this brave teacher has waged for better food in her school.

http://www.grist.org/article/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 emails 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 a pop.

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


much more at the link above.

in a patient run canteen in a mantal hospital. The list was taken in by my superior and promptly vanished, but nearly everything I recommended removing from the menu became featured items, and the only result was a basket of apples placed on the counter which lasted about a month.

mark

have control over their own nutrition.

:wtf:

That's why people like this teacher don't get the support they need to make actual CHANGE.

Remember that changey-hopey thing? Whatever happened to it? Its all been accomplished?

My sons' school has been in the process of updating its menu for almost two years. They've instituted very strict and healthy guidelines and the kids love it. The school has the best organic salad bar in town. Baked sweet potato fries have replaced regular fries, they offer sushi; and low-fat, fresh fruit smoothies made on campus. Vegetarian entrees are plentiful and a couple of weeks ago they planted their own garden. Progress happens!