Parents Outraged Pennsylvania School District Announces It Will Restrict Amount Of Snacks Students Bring To School: ‘Lunch Police’

Parents are outraged after a district in Pennsylvania announced that it will be limiting the number of outside snacks students can bring to school.

Last week, Aliquippa School District posted an announcement on Facebook mentioning that students have been bringing “excessive amounts of outside snacks,” claiming that some staff has witnessed some students with shopping bags full of chips and beverages.

In response to this, the district said in the post that it would be conducting student bag searches and throwing out students’ additional snacks. If a student has more than one 4-ounce bag of chips and one beverage that is up to 20 ounces, school security will trash it. This even goes for students who bring their lunch to school, the district says it will also be checking lunchboxes.

“Lunch police,” one person said in the comments. “Maybe they should stay out of the parenting business and focus on giving our kids a quality education.

It didn’t take long for the post to be swarmed with more backlash from parents. The district eventually removed the post a little before 7:30 a.m. But before deleting the post, the school chimed in, saying, “Thank you all for your feedback. If you have children in the district, please contact your building principal. If you are an internet heckler, continue as you were.”

WPXI spoke to the district’s superintendent Phillip Woods who explained that the decision to remove additional snacks comes after the school found out some students were bringing extra food to school to sell the items instead of eating them, which was causing a distraction. School board member Catherine Colaella said the children will be fine as far as food consumption while at school due to the school providing students with free meals for breakfast and lunch.