Two Stories that Show How Ridiculously Authoritarian Public Schools are Becoming

Story number one: Cop arrests man for picking up his own children at school on foot, via BoingBoing.

Here’s a video of a Cumberland County, Tennessee school safety officer illegally arresting a parent who disagreed with the school’s policy on picking up kids. The policy had recently changed, creating a long traffic jam, so the soon-to-be-arrested man walked to the school to get his kids.

The school safety officer was reportedly upset because the parent had called the local sheriff to complain about the school’s new pickup policy and the long waits, and what followed was an argument in which the reasonable, quiet-spoken and polite parent was arrested for “disorderly conduct” by the school safety officer, who put him in cuffs and then into the back of a cruiser without advising him of his rights or enumerating the charge against him.

Presumably the officer was trying to help the local school board get rid of excess cash on its books by creating enormous, pointless liabilities for it.

Story number two: Mom sends kids to school with wholesome lunch. School adds Ritz crackers, and fines the mom, via Gawker.

A mom who thought she was properly parenting by sending her two young kids to school with a homemade, whole-food lunch was shocked to find a penalty note from school officials informing her that the lunch of roast beef, potatoes, carrots, oranges and milk she provided was “unbalanced” and therefore had to be supplemented with Ritz crackers.

She was also fined $10.

According to Weighty Matters, the Manitoba Government’s Early Learning and Child Care department blindly follows a policy which requires lunches to be “balanced” according to “Canada’s awful Food Guide.”

Unbalanced lunches are subject to supplementation and a fine of CDN$5 (US$4.80) per “missing item” per child.

In Kristen Bartkiw’s case, she “neglected” to include “grains” with Natalie and Logan’s packed lunches — a “dereliction” that was “corrected” through the “supplementation” of Ritz crackers.

Now, one might think, but that’s Canada. Not the US. Can’t happen here.

Well, other than the fine, it has already happened here. The USDA has enough time on its hands to inspect individual school lunches and then replace what it deems inappropriate.