You can have my Reeses when you pry it out of my cold, dead, chocolately-peanut-buttery-gooey fingers.
If they can’t sell candy, how do their sports teams, bands, and clubs raise funds?
An interesting point, but I think it’s vanishingly unlikely that this would ever happen. It’s clear that policy is intended to apply to food sold by the school and by vending machines in the school. How is the government going to find out if one kid sells a bag of Skittles to another?
Since the school did back off its punishment, I think it’s more likely the kid was suspended for breaking a foolish rule, not for putting the school’s funding in jeopardy.
Whaddaya mean “now?”
Yeah, you’re right- it’s a very minor thing at best.
Of course, nationwide news coverage of their small-minded idiocy had nothing to do with it.
Maybe they should think outside the box and have, I dunno, a raffle?
I agree with the school. If they want to ban candy, then they can ban candy! CANDY is not a god-given right. Kids can LIVE THEIR LIVES for 8 hours in school without sucking down sugar. If they banned transfats, and some enteprenurial adolescent ass was peddling boxes of french fries, would you feel the same way?
Skittles look like pills.
How do we know those were really chewy candies in that bag? Huh? I think the school administration busted the beginnings of a major drug ring and the kids should have been JAILED! AAAAAAAHAHahahahahahahaha!!!
yes, I do think the whole situation is beyond silly.
Selling crack. Just not near the schoolyard…that’s bad.
I thought it was going to be about one particular candy, the Zero bar, and the policy was some kind of anti-white chocolate thing. Well, at least it hasn’t come to that.
Are you joking? It may keep him from getting a job as I am certain that this will go down on his permanent record. Or are you going to tell me that there is no such thing…
Heh, you’d be surprised at how much of a stickler the government is on this. There are rules for how many feet away from the cafeteria you have to be before you can install a soda machine!
It applies to anything sold by any school representative…clubs, sports, band, DECA-run school store, what have you, are bound by this, too. Now, kids stockpiling candy and selling it “free-enterprise-style”…that’s just…inappropriate, I would think, but whatever. Yeah, I tend to think that the school didn’t have it all down in their policies, which is why they overturned the suspension. I just wonder why the selling kid was being secretive, or if that’s just what the honors kid said in order to not get in trouble. There’s still a lot more to this story. But, eh.
To answer the other question that someone asked, there are lots, and lots of fund-raisers that don’t involve food. Firthermore, note that chocolate is allowed, so candy bars are OK. It’s something along the line of certain types of sugars…believe me, the list is several pages long.
Skittles happen to be on the no-no list, so I have a hard time sympathizing **too ** much with the kid who has dozens of candies to choose from, but **has ** to have his Skittles fix.
There’s no law saying they can’t sell candy off of school grounds, is there? If that were the case, then we wouldn’t be able to guilt our cow-orkers into supporting schools their kids don’t go to, above and beyond the taxes they are already likely paying for their own schools. What a foreign concept that would be.
And has nobody else heard of Market Day? This, folks, is a whole new ballgame in academic capitalism. Those people are hardcore…seriously.
Heh. Candy. Box. Heh.
I just have to wonder, in just about every one of these stories, the school just metes out ridiculous punishment without seemingly ever really looking at the situation with a critical eye. That is, until the media gets ahold of the story, and everyone flips out at the administration’s audacity and lack of common sense, to which they invariably sheepishly inform us that their actions fall within normal rules or “guidelines” under which they operate.
Really, is it too much to ask that school administrators be a little less reactionary and overly stringent when enforcing vaguely worded rules? Of course, the answer to my own question is probably that the vast majority are not like this, but, of course, you never hear of the good decisions in the news.
When I think of candy in a box, I think of movie theatres. I wonder why they sell boxed candy when other stores sell it in bags?
crinkliness
And stackability in the display case. My grocery sells candy in boxes. And, in fact, calls it “Movie candy” on the display.
Mmmm…Raisinettes.
If they have newly innovated crinkle-free maxipad wrapping, crinkle-free candy bags can’t be far behind!
Thanks so much for linking those two things. I think I’ll be off candy for a while. I guess that’s not entirely a bad thing though.
We’ve had many a Pit thread about zero tolerance policies and things of that type. You wouldn’t think it’s too much to ask, but for some people it looks like it is.
Perhaps the overblown reaction by the school administration is due to the lack of other alternatives. Back in the day, there were a full range of punishments available to school principles. They could assign the student to work in the school, usually janitorial work, but sometimes helping in the office. You don’t hear about those type of punishments anymore, probably because of lawsuits and labor laws.
Corporeal punishment is out now, too, a perfectly good alternative spoiled by a few sadists and psychologists. What choices does a principle have for punishment? Kicking the kid off of extra-curricular groups, and suspension. That’s your choices.
I also get the feeling, whenever I hear these type of stories, that the kids were probably unrepentant, spoiled rotten jerks when confronted with their transgressions, and that’s what really caused the overblown punishment.
The sympathy changes dramatically if a student is doing something minor, but cops a huge attitude about being caught.