National PTA sponsor??

Coca-Cola Enterprises, your local Coca-Cola bottler close to home, presents "Your Power to Choose...Fitness Health Fun" at the 2003 National PTA Annual Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. This initiative illustrates Coca-Cola Enterprises' continued commitment to supporting positive youth development, and promoting nutrition education and physical fitness. Please stop by the Coca-Cola Enterprises booth in the exhibit hall during the convention to learn more.

Your local Coca-Cola bottler serves thousands of communities across the country, and strives to be responsive and respectful of the right of parents, teachers, and students to choose the beverages for their schools. That's why Coca-Cola Enterprises provides a broad range of product choices. It is their goal to continue to develop model relationships to assist communities and school partners in addressing their specific needs.

Coca-Cola Enterprises is a proud sponsor of National PTA and has the opportunity to commit the help of its employees in the expansion of National PTA's Parent Involvement Schools of Excellence Certification. The company will be presenting more information about its involvement with this certification during the convention and will inform convention attendees about how it will take information about Parent Involvement Schools of Excellence Certification across the country to local communities.

 

From a teacher:

I teach in an area with 70%+ qualify for free and reduced lunch... and probably just as large of percent is overweight. I'm frustrated with the selling of donuts and candy to fund ASB projects. If that is the only purpose of the ASB, I would suggest we get rid of it. With nutritionally deprived obese students especially, I strongly believe that it is wrong to sell sugar based snacks to fund educational projects. I think it furthers the "poverty mentality" that says if you have a dollar, spend it now for instant gratification rather than learning to save towards a goal. As a minimum, I want to see snacks offered that one can claim offer nutrition such as granola bars, apples, oranges, nuts and other similar snacks though I realize they too have weaknesses.

From a parent on Bainbridge:

..On the soda subject, after further detective work, it appears that it is sold by ASB at random lunch sales, which then violates the lunchtime rule. I will still be all over this. My daughter told me yesterday that in her study skills class where many kids have ADD and ADHD, they use pop for rewards, in fact, Diet Cola! This is a morning class. Can you imagine? So, I have lots of educational work to do.

From a PTA leader:

..While selling pepperoni and licorice to kids at Whitman today I was plagued by a guilty conscience. Of course, I've been hearing the media uproar about obesity (surprise, surprise). Many of the kids buying the snacks today were heavy and were buying candy and drinking pop.

I know your organization is currently working on this. My question is are you against all snack fundraising? If not, where can we get some healthy alternatives for under a dollar a piece? Trail mix? fruit leather? Carob lollipops? Our economy gives kids cheap, unhealthy snacks and we get a big profit. Hard to compete against.

From a District employee:

I was out at Garfield High School today at noon. For every (poor) kid in the school lunchroom, there were at least 10 outside the school purchasing entrée items from vendors who have set up shops (I have photos) around the school selling pizza, dips, breadsticks, etc. There were hundreds of kids buying their lunches on the sidewalks and there are apparently no controls over this irresponsible behavior.

One needn't wonder why the District has fiscal problems when one witnesses this. The street venders are certainly "fat and happy".

...As it stands, only the kids too poor to buy the wares of the street vendors are in the lunchroom on sunny days like this. The custodians are left with a tremendous pile of garbage brought in from the neighborhood and the citizens that live nearby are treated similarly.

From a teacher:

MacDonalds has found a new way of advertising in the schools and it's much worse than anything I've seen before. They come in and sign a contract with the principal. The principal doesn't even need to talk to the staff about the contract. MacDonalds gives the school a small percentage of the proceeds of a designated MacDonalds night for the school. Teachers are encouraged to sign up to work at MacDonalds that night. Kids are urged to come in and buy product and see their teachers waiting tables and bussing dishes. Kids are also encouraged to make posters about the evening. These go up on the walls of the school and an ad for MacDonalds night goes on the marquee outside the school. I've seen this at two schools so far. Some of our teachers were complaining because they had just been teaching a health unit on nutrition (district approved curriculum) and then on the same day they were asked to promote MacDonalds night.

Sent to a CCCS member by a friend:

My daughter, NAME, invites you to buy wonderful Otis Spunkmeyer gourmet cookie dough... with the proceeds benefiting the Senior Class of Inglemoor High School (for their Senior Breakfast, Senior Prom and Commencement.) She is selling large containers of cookie dough (9 cookie options with sufficient dough for 36 preformed cookies that can freeze for up to 6 months, with a great container for the dough and later homebaked cookies, for $12.00)!

From a parent:

"At this evening's fifth grade Back to Schools night, the president of the PTA went class to class with a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. She pointed out the Boxtop for Education, how to cut it out and where to deposit it in the school office. Could General Mills ask for better free advertising?

Total Middle School take from last years BFE drive? $100. We sell our integrity cheap up here."

From a parent in Seattle:

I was at a jv basketball game at Summit yesterday. In the hall, just down from the Kindergarten room were two machines with Coke products. Fruitopia and PowerAde. I was asked to get the coach a drink and while I was doing so, a woman came by who I thought was the principal. She said there are better machines down the hall-with soda in them.

I said, no thanks, this what I need, no soda. And then I said, off the cuff, "You know, these facades have to go!" and she got sort of huffy and said I'm just the nurse.

So two points here those machines (located near the gym) are in sight and access of kindergartners and the facades are still there. Perhaps K-5 for all I know.

From a Washington Reading Corps staffer:

The Washington Reading Corps gave us a bunch of books that Starbucks donated for us to give to the kids we serve and wanted us to produce a bunch of thank-you notes directed at Starbucks from such kids. I didn't do it but a lot of corps members did.

From a local journalist:

the Mall Academy, the experimental high school within Northgate Mall. the school emphasizes vocational training for at-risk students, but that the vocational training consists of retail internships within the mall. In lieu of a cafeteria program, students are given fast food vouchers for mall retailers. The program is run by the Simon Youth Foundation, the charitable wing of mall developer Simon Properties. The school at Northgate opened last fall, and is one of several around the country.

From a Parent:

I was at Ingraham tonight for a band spaghetti feed. In the cafeteria, ads for Gatorade on the wall, inflatable school from the Dairy Commission, large cardboard cutout of a an NBA basketball player, one Fruitopia machine in the cafeteria, one visible in the hallway, and a TV on the wall for the purpose of viewing Channel One.

From a school librarian:

At Cleveland High School in Seattle, a teacher got a contract whereby students work at Safeco field for free and the money goes to the Student Body fund or the class treasury. For 48 person-hours, the ASB gets $350. The class is saving for a class trip to Cancun. Kids work in 4-hour shifts at Safeco Field for games.

From a news reporter:

Brian Bolaria owns all 45 McDonalds franchises from Port Angeles to Tacoma, and McDonald's McTakeover is big there. Every Tuesday night, all across Kitsap County, parents and teachers sign up to work 6-8 PM in exchange for 40% of the profit going to their PTA/PTO, PE Dept., or booster club. Fliers are posted in the schools, encouraging families to come to McDonald's on Tuesday (the slowest night of the week for the restaurant).

From a Spokane parent:

Thought you'd enjoy hearing about our experiences with commercialism in Spokane public schools.

When our daughter, Michelle, was in the second grade we encountered the Pizza Hut reading program. If the child read a certain amount each month, he/she received a coupon for a personal pan pizza. Michelle loved to read, so not thinking much about the long range impact, our family participated. Then summer came and Pizza Hut pizza was the only type of pizza Michelle wanted to order. Yikes, I fell for it!

In the third grade, we opted out of the Pizza Hut reading program. I told Michelle's teacher we wanted Michelle to learn to read for the love of reading, not for the love of eating. She said fine, it was an optional program. I explained our reasons to Michelle and she said, "Oh, you mean they are bribing kids to read?"

All was well until the end of the year when Pizza Hut put on party for Michelle's class. Michelle wasn't allowed to eat any pizza because she was the only child who didn't participate in the program. She had to sit in the corner while other kids ate pizza and partied. Michelle came home crying that day.

Then there was the Campbell's soup label program. One day while grocery shopping, I reached for a can of Progresso soup. Michelle said, "Mom you can't buy Progresso! You have to buy Campbell's soup because our school is really poor and needs the money from the labels!" I bought Progresso. What did those hundreds of soup and cereal labels buy for our school? A new soccer ball. I would have gladly purchased a new ball to keep commercialism out of Michelle's school!

Public schools are brain washing our children from an early age to buy products from specific companies. I went to Michelle's principal and shared my concerns. It went right over her head. Her only comment was, "Aren't we lucky they have great products!"

Kinds of Commercialism