Price of a Pizza pie
“I can’t believe the firefighter’s house wasn’t searched for snail bate when they found that meat in his yard. Any one of us and it would have been grounds for a search warrant, although it’s probably too late now.
“This whole food issue at the schools has gotten so out of hand. I get a notice from Solorsano that my child can’t have candy, only bring fruit, fresh vegetables. All the joy has been taken out of being a kid.
“Yes, the kids are fat. They are downright fat. The ones that are fat are going to stay fat because it’s mainly at home and there’s nothing we can do to change that. They’re either locked in the house because it’s not safe to be outside or they’re playing video games. The restrictions placed on my daughter are ridiculous – how they police the food they have. I police my daughter’s food and she’s not overweight. What’s more ludicrous is at the gulag we fondly refer to as Gilroy High School; they have such restrictions that on Valentines Day my daughter had to surreptitiously take cupcakes to her friend. She tells me regularly that they are people and they are Americans and they still have rights.
However, today some young people got pizzas for lunch, told their friends that they can’t share food because they would get suspended. Well, or course, that didn’t work, a piece of pizza was taken and one piece of pizza was confiscated and a kid was suspended. The food police are out there.
Red Phone:
Dear Caller, Red Phone contacted Mary Ann Boylan, assistant principal at Gilroy High School, who was responsible for suspending the student who shared a pizza last week.
The reason the student was suspended was not because he was sharing food per se, but because he was sharing food immediately after Boylan told him not to, she said.
“Defiance is the issue, not food,” said Boylan.
As Boylan explains it, she met the student at the parking lot gate, where he had received two pizzas from his mother. State and federal laws prohibit students from sharing food at schools, so Boylan took one pizza to save for the student to pick up after school. Boylan left the other pizza with the student because he said he could eat it by himself. She did warn him that if he shared it, he would be breaking a district rule.
“I trusted the kid that he’s going to do what he said,” Boylan said.
However, when she returned to the main office, she saw on a video camera that the boy was sharing the pizza with his friends, Boylan said.
When called to her office, he admitted to distributing the food and said he wanted to take a stand. Boylan suspended the student and explained the situation to his parents. The parents disagreed with the rule but agreed with the suspension, Boylan said.
If she had just found the student sharing the pizza, without having warned him first, she would have likely just taken it away, Boylan said.
Handing out suspensions is “not what I get my jollies off of,” she said.
The rule against sharing food ultimately comes from mandates at the state and federal level, which are meant to ensure that students receive a nutritious lunch and that parents know what foods their kids are eating. Steve Brinkman, assistant superintendent of business services, is the Gilroy school district point man on these matters.
Complaining about volunteers?
Red Phone: “The guy that complained about volunteers helping out cleaning his neighborhood, and he’s going to complain about THAT? Why doesn’t he clean up his own neighborhood; I clean up mine. Then he referred to them as “little” volunteers with their “little” suits. What is this guy, why can’t he get out and thank them for cleaning up his dirty neighborhood? I’m disappointed that a person like that lives in the same community I do, one that I love and appreciate all the work these volunteers do. God bless them.”
Red Phone:
Dear Caller: While Red Phone can appreciate edginess in our humor, we agree that mocking hard-working volunteers is simply not funny.
If Red Phone sees those volunteers working to clean its neighborhood, it will likely bring them a pitcher of lemonade.
