Preschool prohibits lunches from home unless they are accompanied by doctor's note

Preschool prohibits lunches from home unless they are accompanied by doctor's note

Linda Brooks
Linda Brooks

What’s cooking at your child’s preschool? Not you, if you send your child to a certain unnamed preschool in Richmond, Virginia. The author of the blog My 2 Crazy Curls does and recently received a note advising parents that packed lunches sent from home are no longer on the lunchtime menu unless they come with a note from the child’s pediatrician affirming a medical condition that necessitates a special diet.

Here is the note as it appeared at the blog. Note as a bonus the “teacher’s” misspelling of physician’s. (We’ll get to the handwritten addendum shortly.) A transcript of the text follows.

Preschool note to parents

Dear Parents,

I have received word from Federal Programs Preschool pertaining to lunches from home. Parents are to be informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition requiring a specific diet, along with a physicians [sic] note to that regard.

I am sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions concerning this matter, please contact Stephanie [redacted] the Health Coordinator for Federal Programs Preschool at [redacted].

Thanks,
[redacted]

The school claims to be doing due diligence by following the Federal Programs Preschool initiative, which is an arm of Head Start. The program, which is interpreted differently from state to state, provides students with breakfast, lunch, and a snack.

Which is acceptable, one supposes, so long as the preschooler and parent are on board with the food the school serves. That is not the case for Linda Brooks, the blogger at My 2 Crazy Curls, who writes that her son Zion refuses to eat school lunch. “He’s uber picky,” Brooks notes.

So she did what any conscientious parent would do and packed Zion a lunch from home in defiance of the federal edict. It was after this that she received a second copy of the notice with the hand-written reprimand which reads:

Ms Brooks,

Please do not send a lunch to school unless a doctor’s note is sent in connection with this letter.

Thanks,
[redacted]

Another blog, MO MomDot, written by Trisha Haas, who self-identifies herself as a friend of Brooks, carries the story but also includes a notice from her own child’s school informing parents that ice cream sandwiches, Fudgesicles, and push-ups (the ice cream kind, not the healthy kind) will be available during P.E.

Ice cream on school lunch menuSounds like the feds are really onto something.

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Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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