Tuesday, December 7th, My daughter, Claribel, was denied a snack at schoo.. She was apparently too "wiggly" at nap time and "lost" her snack "privilege." Children have a chance to "earn" their snack back with "good behavior" if they have lost it. As soon as her class gets up from nap/rest time they immediately go to snack, how is a child supposed to "earn" back snack with zero opportunity? On top of that, food is in the base of the pyramid in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, along with things like air, sleep, water, and shelter. These necessities should never be used as any sort of punishment. Wednesday my daughter, along with at least one other student, was denied snack, again.

I was NEVER informed of this by the teacher or any staff and definitely do not appreciate that. How did I find out? Thursday Claribel got in the car and started talking about her day. She told me her classmate hit her and she started crying (I also was not informed of this by anyone) when I asked what she did she told me "nothing, the teacher saw it and stopped ____ from hitting me again. I got snack today, I didn't get the last two snacks but I got today's."  Obviously, this sent a red flag to me so I started gently pushing to find out what happened. I asked her a couple of different ways why she didn't get snack and after asking if she just hadn't been hungry she said, "No, I just didn't get them because I was just too wiggly." At this point I started asking her throughout our afternoon in several different ways to make sure her story didn't change.

Friday morning we went in a bit late to tell the principal what she said and I told her I wanted to know why she was denied snack. She told me she would find out and get back with me that afternoon. When I picked her up is when I was informed about how Snack could be "lost" and how it could be "earned back" I am 30 weeks pregnant and a bit emotional, due to that, so it was incredibly hard for me to even tell her principal that we don't EVER use food as a punishment. we talked for a moment and I let her know that because she didn't get snack on Tuesday that she actually went over 7 hours, in the middle of the day, without eating. 

As soon as I pick Claribel up on Tuesdays, we take little brother to visitation with his biological parents. Without knowing what happened we were at visitation until 5:15 and then had to make a car payment and drop off two packages in Yukon. By the time we got home and started eating it was almost exactly 7pm. My child went without food for over 7 hours, in the middle of the day, due to being denied snack and me not being informed of this decision. My child cried, whined, and was in a bad mood all the way to visitation and continued being upset and easily agitated all afternoon but never told me why. When I would ask what was wrong she would just cry harder or tell me she just wanted her dad.  She has also yelled at me twice this last week over food, now, as well. We have never had any issue with food aggressions until this last week.  

I am not calling for anyone's position to be taken from them or any kind of repercussion, at this point. However, I want to see that there is mandatory training for faculty and staff about food traumas and insecurities and the problems and eating disorders that they can lead to. I want a district-wide policy put in place stating that food will never be used as a punishment nor denied to any student.