A local Pennsylvania school district plans to search school lunches and limit students’ snack and drink consumption during the school day. Aliquippa School District announced this new policy on Facebook, garnering hundreds of angry comments from parents and leading to the post being quickly deleted the next morning. 

On Monday, April 4, the Aliquippa School District began limiting students to bringing only one 4 ounce bag of snacks and one beverage of up to 20 ounces per day. Students who pack their lunches for school will not be receiving any additional permissions to bring more food, and lunches will be opened and inspected each day. 

The Facebook post explained that the school district’s Junior/Senior High School students had begun to bring  “excessive amounts of outside snacks,” such as shopping bags with chips and canned drinks in them. 

However, limiting the amount of ounces of a beverage students can consume also limits the types of beverages they can have throughout the day. Students could not bring in a coffee for the morning and a gatorade for practice after school under the district’s restrictive new policy. 

One comment on the Facebook post read, “You’re going to tell parents what they can and cannot send for their child to eat? That’s absurd! Maybe if school lunches weren’t so tiny and gross they wouldn’t need to bring extra snacks.” 

Other parents in the comments accused the school of acting as the “lunch police” and undermining the parenting authority of the parents whose children are subjected to this policy. 

Prior to the post’s deletion, the school had responded by stating, “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.” 

The schools Superintendent, Phillip Woods, informed WPXI of Pittsburgh that the policy of limiting snacks was implemented due to students selling and trading food, causing distractions within the school day. 

Catherine Colalella, an Aliquippa School Board Member, stated, “The children aren’t going to starve because they do have free meals for breakfast and lunch.”