Letter to the Editor: Upper Dublin School District Wellness Policy in Jeopardy

I know many people have thought that the nutrition initiative was a waste of time that could have otherwise been spent on more important things, and actually I agree in part, too much unnecessary time was spent on this by parents, school board members and superintendent.   This is not rocket science, it was simply to take out fully processed food, and replace it with more nutritional options.  Somehow, this was made to seem like an insurmountable task, based on what was being communicated by food service, but in fact it was actually shown to be very doable.

We have a new wellness policy put in place with new administrative regulations.   After hearing that everyone was on the same page, I am again surprised to learn that the initiative is in jeopardy.  This time it is food service supplied inaccurate information that is given at a recent task force meeting, with a recommendation to eliminate the new wellness regulations. I am shocked that a committee was told things like we have a list of 150 ingredients on the avoid ingredient list, when there are only 16.  Just for the record, the 16 ingredients that are on the list are potential carcinogens or have been shown to cause other ill effects, as documented by the Center for Science In the Public Interest, and are mostly found in fully processed foods.    Last summer, I was supplied with choices for the elementary food favorites and was able to choose more nutritional identical items and none of those items had any of these 16 potentially harmful ingredients. This too was able to be done.

The Nutrition Advisory Committee’s purpose was to have parents who were interested in nutrition, work with Food service to make decisions that would be financially sound as well as nutritionally beneficial.  It seems that behind the scenes the work was being done to take the power away from those that were committed and truly cared. The first goal seemed to be to eliminate the caring and dedicated parents. I, along with other dedicated parents who served on this committee for two years, were asked to now submit resumes and interview for a voting position while also being asked to have a background in nutrition.  Most of the self- appointed administrative voting members do not have a nutrition background, and in most of the cases have publicly admitted that they do not even see the importance of this initiative, but yet they will have the majority vote on this committee.   To me this committee is now just another vehicle for Food service to continue to push for the non- nutritional food to make its way back on the menu, the latest suggestion from the director of Food service was to bring back bosco sticks.

I always said that marketing is key to any initiative’s success, and case in point….from my understanding ,we have a huge loss of revenue in the food service department, and although we have not seen any financial information, it is supposedly all due to the initiative, food service has done a great job of pointing the finger once again in that direction, and has continued on the negative marketing campaign .How could you expect something like this to thrive when you have the director of food services sending out emails to principals asking them to send listserves to parents for their input on the new menu because if nothing is done, the initiative will continue.  This followed by applause or “bravo” as the email said to the elementary kids who rebelled against the new foods…..what message does this send?  Lets not forget that many of the food service employees were making negative comments in front of kids, teachers and parents.  All of this coupled with the fact that we launched the initiative by unnecessarily charging more money for the more nutritional lunches, while secretly switching out fresh fruit with fruit in a preservative …THIS all leads to failure.

The recent activity in this district is extremely insulting as well as disrespectful.  It goes beyond the nutrition initiative, it is about trusting people at their word and not having to constantly correct the inaccuracies that continue to be disseminated through food service that are influencing decisions being made.  It gets tiring hearing that it is too hard, no other district is doing it, it can’t be done when ultimately it seems that we find out, it can be done.   Food service has spent so much of everyone’s valuable time with the constant resistance.  Government regulations are minimal requirements.  We are Upper Dublin, and we do everything above the minimum, this is no different.     We ask everyone to work their hardest…this is no different.   When there is a will there is a way…..if the people who are in charge of this task feel that they cannot do it, then find people who can…giving up is just not an option, especially when it effects the health and well-being of children.  I am asking if the school board will be true to their word and protect the existing wellness policy, by not allowing any of these soon to be requested unnecessary waivers to the new administrative regulations. 

Jill Florin, Dresher