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Please note that the permission slip is not about a cookie that the child brought to school in a bag lunch. It is about a cookie being provided by the teacher as part of a science lesson (They are using the Oreos as part of a lesson on plate tectonics).

I actually kind of get where the teacher in this situation is coming from. There are parents out there who do not want their kids to have any kinds of sweets and will go ballistic if someone else giving their kids sweets.

I know this, because my sister-in-law used to be one of them. She mellowed eventually, because my mom wouldn’t put up with it.

“There are parents out there who do not want their kids to have any kinds of sweets and will go ballistic if someone else giving their kids sweets.”

This is true, and I am sorry for those poor kids, whose parents seem not to understand the concept of moderation. And the schools aren’t helping by catering to this sort of irrational candy phobia. A friend of my daughter told me recently that her school won’t allow any candy to be exchanged on Valentine’s Day — not an ounce — because it is a “healthy school.” Healthy, maybe. Joyless, you betcha.

If nothing else, this makes a good argument for school choice…

@DEM

“And the schools aren’t helping by catering to this sort of irrational candy phobia.”

The schools don’t have a lot of choice. The parents vote, and will sue if voting isn’t enough to get their way. Cash-strapped school districts can’t afford to defend against even meritless lawsuits, so they cave.

@Allan,

“If nothing else, this makes a good argument for school choice…”

Actually, no this doesn’t. Private schools are even more vulnerable to overwrought helicopter parents than public schools are.

My point is that a parent who does not like the policies of where there child is going to school could change schools.

By school choice, I do not mean vouchers for private school.

Side note – lower merion school district is about as far from cash strapped as you can get

This district also had the problem of laptop webcams recording children’s homes a few years back

@Allan,

“My point is that a parent who does not like the policies of where there child is going to school could change schools.”

1. This isn’t a school policy issue, this was one teacher.

2. The parents themselves are largely responsible for this sort of thing.

“…noting that there were students in the class with gluten allergies.”

This is patently false. “Celiac Disease” is a rare autoimmune disease, not an “allergy”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease

There are people with wheat allergies: http://gastro.ucla.edu/site.cfm?id=281

By school choice, I do not mean vouchers for private school.

So you’re for school choice just so long as it meets your criteria. Put another way, you are not for school choice.

So, whats new?

I belong to a Beekeeping club and was asked to do a presentation to a local school. We were banned from bringing actual bees (too dangerous, possibility of bee stings and anaphylactic shock) . Then we were told that we were not allowed to let the kids eat samples of honey, without getting individual permission slips from each of the parents……and it was up to us to organise it. Who has ever heard of an allergic reaction to honey, and if one of them is allergic, how is a permission slip supposed to cure them of it?

I decided I had better thing to do with my time than pander to the perpetual lawsuit-afraid common sense-addled idiots and declined…..at which point I was derided for not doing all I could for ‘the kids’.