Schools frown on homemade treats
Food-borne illness concerns officials
By Kelly Soderlund
The Journal Gazette
Dec. 25, 2005
Kim Sands looks back fondly on the days when her mom would bake goodies for her to bring to Maplewood Elementary School on her birthday or for holiday parties.
But that was at least 35 years ago. Instead of following in her mother's footsteps, Sands, who is the legislative chairwoman for the Fort Wayne Community Schools PTA and a teacher at Miami Middle School, must buy cookies at the store if her daughters want to bring food to school.
"I really enjoyed that, but times have changed so much nowadays," Sands said.
Fort Wayne Community Schools, along with a number of school districts in northeast Indiana, have policies that prevent students from bringing in homemade treats for the class. Goodies must be prepackaged from an establishment licensed by the board of health.
"It's certainly not meant to reduce the joy and the celebration of what's going on," said Marsha Metzger, director of food and nutrition services for Fort Wayne Community Schools. "It is meant to keep a classroom of students healthy."
School officials say the policy is in place because of students' allergies and to prevent food poisoning from goods not prepared in a sanitary environment.
"Certainly there's plenty of evidence that food-borne illnesses are on the rise in our country altogether, and nobody misses the emphasis that's given to hand washing," Metzger said. "We have more students with allergies than ever before. If you don't have products with a label on them that gives the classroom teacher information on what's being distributed, that can be a challenge as well."
The policy gives Sands a sense of comfort as a teacher and as a parent.
"You never know what kind of home situation that the baked goods are coming from, and in the interest of health issues I think it's a better policy just to have store-bought goods," Sands said. "There's too many unknowns out there. Too many household situations that are unsafe out there. There's nothing that could prevent people from putting something in the baked goods. Which is very unfortunate, but it's not safe like it used to be when we were growing up."
But whether the schools enforce the policy varies throughout the district.
Melissa Coventry, whose children attend Blackhawk Middle and Glenwood Park Elementary schools, used to relish baking chocolate chip cookies and other cookbook creations for her daughters to bring to school. While Glenwood Park is strict on its homemade food policy, Franke Park Elementary -- where her daughters used to attend school -- was not.
"They never really pushed that you could not take homemade things," Coventry said.
District spokeswoman Debbie Morgan said it's up to each principal to enforce the policy.
"We have policies, and we need to follow the policies and when policies aren't followed, it becomes an evaluation issue," Morgan said. "I have no knowledge that we aren't following that policy. It's been one that's been part of the district for a number of years."
Despite her love of cooking, Coventry understands why the policy is in place.
"I can understand where they're coming from when they would rather have store bought because in some cases it might be safer," Coventry said. "I'm against it, because I like to make things and take them in for Christmas; special little things, little goodies and everything. It doesn't let me be creative at their school or anything."
The treats were hardly creative at Kirstin Reeves' holiday party Dec. 16 for her fourth-graders at Pleasant Center Elementary School. Her 26 students ate store-bought cookies and cupcakes, wrapped candy, Doritos and had soft drinks.
The only home-cooked item was a cookie for each student, brought in by Reeves. Principal David Weber said it's fine for teachers to bake items to bring in.
Adams Central Community Schools and all three school districts in Whitley County also have policies with these specifications. Whitley County school districts must follow a policy mandated by the Whitley County Department of Health.
In 1994, a school in Whitley County had a hepatitis A outbreak, said Heather Reid, public health nurse for the county. The director of the health department at that time enacted a policy to bar students from bringing in homemade goods to school to prevent future spread of disease, Reid said.
She did not know the name of the school or where the outbreak stemmed from.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Whitley County was one of three counties in Indiana that had the most reported hepatitis A cases between 1987 and 1997.
Hepatitis A can be spread by an infected person who did not wash his or her hands after using the bathroom or changing a diaper.
"(The policy's) been here long enough that people pretty much know," said Ruth Jones, principal of Pierceton Elementary School in Kosciusko County. Because the school serves students from Whitley County, she follows the health department's rule.
While there is currently no policy on the books that prevents parents from sending homemade treats to schools in Bluffton-Harrison Metropolitan School District, officials are in the process of writing a rule that may lean that way.
"I am going to encourage the group to move away from treats that are brought in and prepared at home," said Jon Bennett, Bluffton-Harrison Middle School principal and assistant to the superintendent.
Bennett is part of a committee that is drafting the district's wellness policy, which is required for any school that receives federal money to provide students with free or reduced-price lunches. The federal government does not require schools to ban homemade treats.
But Bennett has contacted the Indiana School Boards Association for guidance, and it was recommended he push for banning homemade goods. At the very least, Bennett said the policy will include guidelines for parents on how to prepare food safely.
Bennett is afraid if the school system continues to allow homemade treats at parties, the district may find itself facing a lawsuit if a student gets food poisoning.
"It really opens up some liability issues," Bennett said. "Fortunately, we've not had problems with homemade treats that have been brought in by students, although, it certainly could cause some legal problems in the future."
The new rule will certainly be a change for Bluffton-Harrison parents. At the middle school dance Dec. 16, Bennett said about 60 percent of the food was homemade.
"We have a lot of parents that are very good about wanting to bring in treats," Bennett said.
ksoderlund@jg.net
