Let Freedom Ring Blog

You know nanny statism has spun off the rails when you see notes like this:

I hope Leeza Pearson tells this moron to stick that note where the sun doesn’t shine. Here’s what happened:

Leeza Pearson was out of fruit and vegetables one day last week, so she tucked a pack of Oreos in her daughter Natalee’s lunch and sent her off to school at the Children’s Academy in Aurora, Colorado. Pearson said she was stunned when her 4-year-old came home later in the day with the cookies untouched and a sternly worded note from the school.

Here’s the text of the note:

Dear Parents, it is very important that all students have a nutritious lunch. This is a public school setting and all children are required to have a fruit, a vegetable and a healthy snack from home, along with a milk. If they have potatoes, the child will also need bread to go along with it. Lunchables, chips, fruit snacks, and peanut butter are not considered to be a healthy snack. This is a very important part of our program and we need everyone’s participation.

That’s chilling words:

We need everyone’s participation.

Schools aren’t the final arbiter of what children eat. If health departments want to address childhood obesity, that’s one thing. It’s another when the government tells parents what to do.

Pearson said she is baffled by how the school handled the situation. “I think it is definitely over the top, especially because they told her she can’t eat what is in her lunch,” Pearson told ABC News. “They should have at least allowed to eat her food and contacted me to explain the policy and tell me not to pack them again.”

Officials at the Children’s Academy said they have no comment when contacted by ABC News. However, Patty Moon, a spokeswoman for the Aurora Public Schools, which provides funding for some of the children to attend the private pre-school, said a note in the lunchbox is not supposed to be standard practice. “From our end we want to inform parents but never want it to be anything punitive,” Moon said.

Moon’s statement is BS. The note sent home wasn’t hand-written. It was pre-printed. The school’s intentions are exceptionally clear. It’s clear that the school wants to dictate policy to parents. It’s time to pull the plug on this school.

Parents should decide what their children eat. Nanny staters shouldn’t have a say in the matter. Period.

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