Posted on 03/14/2012 9:31:20 AM PDT by Nachum
RALEIGH — State lawmakers questioned a N.C. Department of Health and Human Services official at a hearing Tuesday to determine why a Hoke County preschooler’s homemade turkey sandwich was replaced with chicken nuggets.
Members of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services wanted to know if a teacher at West Hoke Elementary School was following state law when she offered a 4-year-old girl a cafeteria tray containing chicken nuggets, a sweet potato, bread, and milk as an alternative to her homemade turkey and cheese sandwich, potato chips, banana, and apple juice.
Deborah Cassidy, director of the DHHS Division of Child Development and Early Education, also was asked whether the cafeteria lunch provided to the 4-year-old was more nutritious then her homemade lunch and if the teacher (who has resigned from the school) should have faced any disciplinary action.
Cassidy told the committee that officials from the school and the school district have refused to discuss the matter with her.
The incident drew headlines nationally, and lawmakers wanted to see what steps should be taken to make sure the event was not repeated.
Cassidy testified that although the teacher did not violate the state agency’s policy, her division would have recommended the teacher go about implementing it in a more tactful way.
“What actions has the state taken to ensure we don’t have situations where a perfectly good turkey sandwich is being replaced with a bunch of fried chicken nuggets, which doesn’t make sense to the public or to any of us?” Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, asked Cassidy.
(Excerpt) Read more at carolinajournal.com ...
If I was governor of NC, I would have the State Police escort every single federal official to the state border. There is NO REASON for them to even be in our state without the permission of the governor or the local county sheriff.
I don’t have any kids.My point was that these people are not qualified to make any decision about nutrition and therefore should not be doing this...you are the ones adding to my comment when that is not what was meant.
If any bureaucrat, local/state/federal, interfered with my child’s home-prepared food, the &^%$ would hit the fan................
“what gives anyone the right to take a lunch from a child provided by a parent?”
Isn’t it called stealing the kid’s lunch?
Simple. Legislate DHHS out of existence or defund them. When the bureaucratic roaches feel the heat they have an epiphany.
Presumably meat alternative means that "pink slime" made from meat byproducts.
Absolutely! Don’t go down the “not a nutritionist” road. Then you’ll be paying for nutritionists in every day care and government school in the country to search and replace kids’ lunches. It’s about government overreach and putting the busybody idiots in their place.
By the way, my 2 kids are elite athletes and they eat well-balanced meals but they also eat a lot of things deemed “not healthy”. Their cookies, chips and soda would be confiscated. It’s not about the child’s health it’s all about the money and control over our food and everything else in our lives.
I have a feeling there is another little tidbit that has not been explored in this stir. NC has a large push to eat NC products. This is implemented in the schools as the Farm to School program.
“During the 2010-11 school year, the NC Farm to School program delivered almost one million dollars worth of NC produce to NC schools, reaching 943,368 students in 1,618 schools. The program expands from 14 to 17 weeks for the 2011-12 school year, in addition to offering a summer program.”
NC ranks 4th in the US in broiler (chicken) production.
NC ranks 1st in the US for sweet potato production.
Look at the foods on the tray that was given to the little girl,
chicken nuggets and sweet potato.
NC products offered through a NC government program. Every packed lunch takes money from their government and school coffers.
quoted note from
http://www.ncfarmtoschool.com/htm/promotions/documents/FTSfactsheet.pdf
Her mother’s choice of turkey was still beneficial to NC as they rank 2nd in the nation in turkey production.
However the school and government bureaucracy had nothing to do with purchasing it so they didn’t get their cut.
One pretty plain money path is tied to the chicken nuggets they substituted for a turkey sandwich. Could it be that the main supplier of the parts is parts nuggets might be Tyson; one of the larger democrat donors? Just the idea that a turkey and cheese sandwich on wheat has less nutrition than breaded chicken nuggets is ridiculous. If McDonald’s were giving large to der Fuehrer they would be subbing Big Macs for the sandwich.
It's an "offer" in the same sense that Obama is "asking" wealthier Americans to pay more taxes.
Maybe the kid preferred the school meal to the home meal?
I mean no disrespect to my parents, but I never really cared for my packaged lunches, and they knew it. I was so glad when we got included in some sort of trial program where I got free lunches daily (I still remember my access code, 20 years later!).
Not that the school lunch was great, it wasn’t, but I had a “thing” about sandwich meat —— it made me gag :) When the lunch program came through, I was able to not have to take in any sandwiches ever again!!!
I got my Dad to give me a buck a day for lunch money, and I used it to buy extra food on the days we had yeast rolls and/or pizza (which were the two good tasting items on the lunch menu).
And it should be noted: I can eat sandwich meat, as long as it is cold & very fresh. But once it is not that, then I can’t handle it, at all. Gagging results, to the point of barfing in a projectile manner.
If we had an honest media, or 0bama was a republican, they would have been all over the concept of the government “asking” anyone to pay more in taxes.
I’ve found that that’s one thing that libs are more averse to than anything - the concept that they are authorizing the government to use coercive deadly force to implement their (the libs’) feel good ideas.
“More tactful way” my ***! The damn government has NO BUSINESS taking away a child’s lunch!
SEPARATION OF SCHOOL AND STATE!!!
The state should stay the he11 out of things that are not their business.
The ONLY persons with any rights over a child should be kinfolk!!
There are no exceptions.
I usually brought lunch from home and by the time I was about 9 I often made it myself. With my mother’s help generally, but soon learned how to do it all without help.
SEPARATION OF SCHOOL AND STATE!
Anyone with any sense would rip their children out of public schools yesterday. I do realize that some people have “better” schools but they are actually very, very rare indeed.
And an ‘educated nutritionist’ should be making such decisions for the girl?
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