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Blogs

Neglecting school funding and junk food

Mar 14

Written by: Jim Hansen
Friday, March 14, 2008

Since the legislature has given away whole chunks of the tax base, local schools are left with a swiss cheese of a tax base to rely on for basic operating needs. They have limited options to raise other money locally. So when snack marketers offer to put vending machines full of junk food in the schools in exchange for giving the schools a cut of the profits, school districts find it financially hard to refuse. Of course there's a lot more profit in candy and chips than salad  and granola bars.

The consequences, of course, are bad nutrition, obesity and dental problems. Legislators concerned about these consequences voiced them on Monday with House Concurrent Resolution 55 which encourages schools to adopt nutritional standards for food and drinks sold in school vending machines. The debate mostly centered on the trees: whether these decisions are best left at the local level – and ignored the forest: their own culpability for putting schools in this financial catch 22. When the legislature fails to live up to its responsibility to fund schools, HCR 55 certainly illustrated that there are more than just educational consequences, there are health consequences as well.

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11 comments so far...

Re: Neglecting school funding and junk food

I testified last year (year before last?) on bill removing junk food vending machines from schools. That bill was defeated in committee, but I thought that the vending machine companies were going to voluntarily remove themselves from elementary schools. Does anyone know if that is accurate?

Richard

By Richard Mussler-Wright on   Monday, March 17, 2008

Re: Neglecting school funding and junk food

Richard - thanks. Glad to see you helped build the pressure to for this year's resolution. It is up for a hearing in the Senate Education Committee tomorrow (Mar. 18) at 3pm in Room 204 of the Statehouse Annex (the old Ada County Courthouse). You should go if you can to add your testimony.

HCR 55 "urges" the State Department of Education to set nutritional standards for food sold in vending machines and it "requests" school districts to report back along with their National School Lunch Program report how they are doing to achieve those standards. The language is not mandatory - which may be why the House agreed to pass it. It appears that rather than getting the vending machines out, the pressure point is to get them to sell more nutritional food. It remains to be seen whether this will work as a voluntary system envisioned in HCR 55.

By Jim Hansen on   Monday, March 17, 2008

Re: Neglecting school funding and junk food

This is sad to me....... We need to care about the health of the children. let me know how the bill went....

By lennon111 on   Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Re: Neglecting school funding and junk food

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By john t roon on   Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Re: Neglecting school funding and junk food

If it may be possible to neglect school funding and junk food then it will be very beneficial for our children.
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