Districts concerned over exercise, nutrition
The Pennsylvania Board of Education is hoping to tackle the growing childhood obesity problem by encouraging exercise and healthier food in schools and even a sort of recess for middle and high school aged students.
But many area school districts have issues with the state's proposed revisions to school physical education and nutrition guidelines. Though they agree with the intent, district officials call the state regulations an unfunded mandate that would cut into academic programming and focuses on nutrition goals that are unreachable at this time.
The Board of Education approved the draft Chapter 12 regulations in May, though by September it had backed off on some of the more stringent physical education requirements.
The regulations are still under review and have not yet been submitted to the governor or state legislators, according to Steve Weitzman, a spokesman for the Department of Education.
"Obesity is almost an epidemic, with one-third of kids either overweight or obese," Weitzman said. Besides the risk of health problems, "there are consequences to academic achievement."
He noted that obesity has been linked to discipline issues and lower test scores in schools.
Weitzman could not give an estimate of when the proposed regulations would go into effect.
On the nutrition side, the proposed regulations would require each food item offered by the cafeteria to contain 35 percent or fewer calories from fat, 10 percent or fewer calories from saturated fat, and no more than 0.5 grams of trans fat. Nuts, seeds and cheese would be exempt from the standards.
Sugar levels would need to make up less than 35 percent of a food's total calories.
Each food item sold as part of the lunch entree must have fewer than 230 milligrams of sodium per portion, though a la carte items can contain as much as 480 milligrams of sodium.
Pennridge officials say the nutrition requirements would be too limiting and would likely increase the cost of school lunches.
Most entrees the district offers - such as its homemade soup - now would not meet those new sodium levels, and food suppliers are not even offering products with those levels yet, said Karen Castenada, director of food services at Pennridge.
"Manufacturers are working on taking out sodium. We're at a starting point," she said. "It's not something you can just do immediately."
She said she would prefer to see such guidelines phased into the school districts, with attention paid more to a balanced meal, rather than focusing on the nutritional value of each, individual food item.
Without a balance, you'll likely lose students' interest in school lunches and perhaps defeat the purpose of the new nutrition guidelines, she said.
"If the only thing you're offering the students is healthy food and no more processed (food) and not as much variety, you're going to have more kids that are going to want to brown bag it," Castenada said. "The best way to go about it is to have lots of healthy choices. If (students) come to the cafeteria and buy a slice of pizza but have salad and fruit juice, it's still a balanced meal."
School districts say promoting healthy foods is already a priority.
Upper Moreland School District recently received a farm-to-school grant that will allow it to plant a vegetable garden in the high school's courtyard, said Superintendent Robert Milrod.
He expects the garden to be planted sometime in the next year, with the harvest being incorporated into school lunches.
"We think that will give people a healthier point of view regarding their environment and also what they're putting into their bodies," he said.
At Pennridge, cafeterias are making a lot of entrees, like soups and buffalo pork subs, from scratch. Even the less healthy choices, like pizza, are made with whole grain flour and a blend of skim and whole mozzarella, Castenada said. Chicken patties and nuggets are baked, not fried.
The state's proposed revisions to Chapter 12 also would require schools to provide at least 30 minutes of "moderate to vigorous physical activity daily during the regular school day."
The regulations state that 20 minutes of the requirement should be in the form of "scheduled recess" for elementary and middle schools or a "physical activity break" for high school students.
The first draft of the regulations also proposed weekly targets for formal physical educations classes: 150 minutes per week at the elementary level and 225 minutes per week in middle and high schools.
But administrators across the state blasted those goals, saying it would require them to hire new phys-ed teachers and build new gymnasiums.
Based on that feedback, the state Board of Education backed off from the physical education requirements, according to a September letter sent to "education stakeholders" in the state.
Still, school districts aren't sure how they will be able to incorporate what some describe as "recess for high school students" into an already packed school day.
Jennifer Foight-Cressman, assistant superintendent at Centennial School District, said Centennial supports the spirit of the law.
"We are committed to educating the whole child and recognize that happy, healthy kids are also better learners," she said.
But some of the proposed requirements would put a strain on instructional time and resources, she added.
Arlene Zielinski, an assistant superintendent at Pennridge, said she was "stunned at the kinds of pictures that came to mind when I imagined every high school student getting an unsupervised, unstructured 20-minute recess."
Adding such a physical activity break would mean a straight loss of instructional time.
"If you put that in, what comes out?" asked Curtis Griffin, superintendent of Hatboro-Horsham School District.
Even during elementary school recesses, administrators can't force a student to be active, she said.
Some students, for instance, spend recess reading a book.
"What are you going to do? Pull the book out of their hand and make them run around?" Zielinski asked.
Pennridge is one of several school districts in the state whose school board passed a resolution against the proposed Chapter 12 changes.
"At some point, schools can't handle everything. (Health and physical fitness) belong as a choice for families to make," Zielinski said. "We're charged with instruction. That's what we should be doing."
Some area school districts, however, are taking a wait-and-see approach to the proposal.
Milrod of Upper Moreland called the regulations "very impractical to implement." But, he added, "Sometimes the world of politics puts out information at one extreme to put us educators in a bargaining position where we try to come up with a solution."
Theresa Hegel can be reached at 215-538-6381 or thegel@phillyBurbs.com.
November 04, 2010 02:21 AM
