Schools given new restrictions

Schools+given+new+restrictions

Keegan Sparks

Many students who arrive early Friday mornings may notice the glaring absence of what should have been a school staple: doughnuts. In September, during late start Friday mornings, FCCLA started selling doughnuts for $1 per doughnut.

The student response was overwhelming. Every week the organization sold out. Evidently, this fundraiser contributed a large portion to the organization’s funds, which are used to send the members to faraway lands for competitions.

Now, due to state guidelines based on federal mandate, FCCLA is forbidden from engaging in this fundraiser.

There are new quality standards set by the federal department of education in order to keep school meals nutritious.

There are many terms to this new standard. Any time a competitive food (food sold to students on school campus) is sold, certain rules must be followed. This applies to any a la carte, school store, snack bar, vending machine and fundraising items. The food that is sold must be a “smart snack.” These snacks must have a certain nutritional value in order to be sold on campus any time from midnight to 30 minutes after the school day ends. This creates the doughnut dilemma, since doughnuts clearly would not meet the nutritional standard to be sold.

This is a huge problem for FCCLA, since there are few foods that would generate a widespread overwhelming student response the way doughnuts do. Now, because of the ridiculous standards mandating what one can and cannot purchase at school, a large portion of funds for the club are now diminished, with few other ways to replace it.

This also has huge implications for other clubs that try to fundraise. They have to come up with ingenious ways of replacing lost revenue that could ordinarily be easily gained by selling food items.

The way to solve this problem is clear. People must voice their opinions to the government, and ask them to focus on improving education in the classroom and not in the cafeteria. The food we consume is far less important than the information we receive.

Education resources must be spent on new books and updated technology, not wasteful spending of tax dollars implementing a program that likely won’t succeed.