No Water at Lunch?!

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Specializes in school nursing.

Okay, please tell me I'm not overreacting...I come into work, sipping my coffee as I read my emails, and I receive one from the kitchen staff asking for an updated list of children who are lactose intolerant because ONLY MILK IS BEING SERVED AT LUNCH.

This is to try and stop the water bottle flipping craze going throughout the 7th and 8th grades....there has yet to be anything done besides the simple "Stop doing that" when students flip water bottles...no lost recess, no punishment, no nothing.

Instead, the kitchen staff and the principal have decided that no one gets water provided at lunch for the next few days. No families were notified. We are a PK-8th grade and I know a lot of families are going to be very upset over this. It just doesn't make sense to me. Am I overreacting?

(Nevermind the fact that there are several other reasons besides being lactose intolerant for a child to need water at lunch, but don't get me started on that.)

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

ugh - i've been fighting this battle since i got here with food services. Only milk is served with lunch. Lactose free milk is available for children with lactose issues, but they need to submit a letter. Water is available, BUT the kids need to buy it. If requested, the sweet lady running the caf will give the kids a cup so they can get water from the fountain. I have been requesting that the little bottles of water become an option. Especially with the dairy heavy lunch options (yogurt option or bagel option)

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Specializes in school nursing.
Water is available, BUT the kids need to buy it.
These kids have to buy water, and they pay for it a month in advance...It just seems so wrong to me that everyday they are served water, and that's what parents are expecting, and now they are taking it away with no notice :grumpy:
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Specializes in School nursing.
ugh - i've been fighting this battle since i got here with food services. Only milk is served with lunch. Lactose free milk is available for children with lactose issues, but they need to submit a letter. Water is available, BUT the kids need to buy it. If requested, the sweet lady running the caf will give the kids a cup so they can get water from the fountain. I have been requesting that the little bottles of water become an option. Especially with the dairy heavy lunch options (yogurt option or bagel option)

We also only have milk as the beverage option. Student are allowed to bring water bottles to school to use throughout the day (re-usable encouraged), but I see several students with headaches in the afternoon that I know don't bring one and don't like milk. I have some cups I've given out to be used at the water fountain.

I have taken away water bottles that have been flipped in health class, though (and returned them for drinking only at lunch). After a warning, its a demerit, then detention. A student isn't going to listen to a "stop doing that" without actual repercussions... :banghead:

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Specializes in kids.

Milk is what comes with the school lunch of the day. Unless there is a note and a lengthy form filled out by the MD as to why there needs to be a substitution. We still sell water but this is HS, so maybe they are not as flip crazy as middle school?

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Specializes in Home Health,Dialysis, MDS, School Nurse.

No plastic water bottles here. The kids are served milk, but anyone who asks can get a little plastic cup and put water in it from the fountain. Free :)

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

It amazes me how schools, including mine, continue to utilize "group punishment" for the actions of a few. The school initiates the action but if the students were to follow through with the concept of group punishment they would all be disciplined, ISS, suspended, etc. I know some of you are familiar with this concept and understand how effective it is when allowed to flow to it's resolution; that is, the group takes the perpetrator, or perpetrators out back after school, or off to the side some other place at school, and beats the crap out of them...problem solved. But now, group punishment only frustrates those that obey the rules and draws attention to those that act up.

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We have bottled water for purchase or if you have a documented allergy those students will get bottled water in place of the milk with a lunch.

The cafe also has available for students a 5 gallon jug of water with little plastic cups for those that do not purchase water....maybe that can be a temp solution.

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Water for purchase only, here too.

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.

Old Dude, that was my knee jerk reaction. Thankfully, my administrators don't do group punishment often. I would be one upset parent if I paid for water a month in advance and my child wasn't flipping bottles. You best be giving me a free month, or asking the parents of flippy to be reimbursing me.

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Specializes in school nurse.

What exactly is bottle-flipping? (It sounds like an elicit party game.)

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No plastic water bottles here. The kids are served milk, but anyone who asks can get a little plastic cup and put water in it from the fountain. Free :)

We have water fountains as well. Kids are just served milk but a lot of kids bring their own lunches and they can bring whatever they want.

What exactly is bottle-flipping? (It sounds like an elicit party game.)

I didn't realize what this was until I read this thread and remembered last Friday night at my son's football game there were a couple of girls flipping a water bottle right behind me and I told them to stop because it was distracting. They stopped.

Now I realize it is a game?

Huh. Weird.

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