School wellness policy addresses junk food, other concerns

Gummy worms, you’re next on the list.

That’s a sign of progress for schools, including the Newton Community School District, which held the first reading of an updated wellness policy at its Dec. 22 board meeting.

Schools were fighting much different battles against poor nutrition 10 or 20 years ago, but at the Dec. 22 meeting, food service supervisor Cristy Croson had many positive items to report about nutrition in the district.

The gummy worms she spotted in a snack machine at Newton High School seemed to be small oversight in what is largely a vastly improving picture of health and nutrition in the district.

“All of our vending machines seemed to be following guidelines at the high school,” Croson said. “I only saw one thing at the high school that didn’t meet the health-snack standards, and that was some gummy worms.”

Board policy 504.11 details how the battle should be fought on many fronts, from nutrition education of students and parents to meal time guidelines, providing a summer meal program and amounts of physical activity.

Croson said she plans to work on many additions and updates to nutritional information available on the district’s website. One significant change in policy will be turning off vending machines from 30 minutes before school hours until 30 minutes after school ends.

The previous policy simply required machines to be turned off during school hours.

“If they could get all healthy snacks in the machines, we could even have them on during the day,” Croson said. “We’d love to do that.”

Staff wellness was mentioned as well.

“There are some wellness walks and some incentives and some things that we can get going in January,” Croson said.

A more lengthy discussion occurred school board member Jay Clark raised the issue of communication from school staff about treats offered both as student incentives for achievement, as well as the food sold at school-sponsored events held after school hours.

“There’s nothing healthy coming out of a PTA concession stand — at all,” Clark said.

Clark pointed out that item No. 21 in the policy reads “Foods and beverages sold at school-sponsored events outside the school day are encouraged to meet the minimum standards for meals or for foods and beverages to be sold individually.”

Croson said the district currently has no specified authority over what can and can’t be sold at school-sponsored events. However, she said staff can help point out to anyone supplying a concession booth some healthy alternatives to current selections.

“As long as it’s not during the school day, they can still sell items that don’t meet the Healthy Kids Act,” Croson said. “That’s a matter of how much we want to try to enforce that. We have to get the information out to the PTA, and that’s part of updating our policy. We haven’t been communicating that very well in the past.”

The Dec. 22 meeting was the only regularly scheduled NCSD board meeting of December. The School Improvement Advisory Committee meets Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the Emerson Hough, and the board is set to meet Jan. 12.

Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com