BOARDWATCH: Parents, teachers and children demand that CPS kick McDonald's and other junk food out of the public schools...
Organized by staff of the Chicago Teachers Union and "Corporate Accountability International," a group protested the massive presence of the McDonald's fast food chain in Chicago's public schools. Notes and the group's press release are below:
"We had a rally to call on McDonald's to stop marketing their food in CPS,' one of the organizers wrote to Substance. "We were also there in support of the Chicago Teachers Union, a coalition partner of ours, as they call for more public investment and less less corporate influence in our schools."
"Our press release is below. Also attached is a statement made by Shannon Leap, also with Corporate Accountability International, at the Board of Education meeting of March 23, 2016. The statement highlights how McDonald's marketing tactics are yet another way that corporations are exploiting our communities during this budget crisis."
PRESS RELEASE...
Coalition to Board of Education: Kick McDonald’s out of schools! At Board meeting, over 80 educators, health professionals, organizations call for an end to junk food marketing in CPS
Contact: For Immediate Release: Lilly Adams lilly@greencorps.org 206-462-9238 March 23, 2016 Shannon Leap shannon@greencorps.org 310-894-1665 MEDIA RELEASE
CHICAGO–Across Chicago, a broad coalition of labor, health, and human rights groups concerned with rising rates of diet-related disease is taking a stand for kids’ health. Members of the coalition rallied outside and delivered public comments inside the Board of Education meeting today demanding the board strengthen the existing Healthy Snack and Beverage Policy and Local School Wellness Policy to protect students from predatory junk food marketing. The coalition includes the Chicago Teacher’s Union, Healthy Schools Campaign, and Fight for $15, and is supported by more than 1,500 people in Chicago and surrounding communities. It is also calling on the Board to re-invest in public schools.
“McDonald’s food and marketing is driving an epidemic of disease in our children,” said Tracey Dobson, a CPS parent. “As a parent with kids in CPS I am calling on the Board to do the right thing and take action [against McDonald’s marketing in our schools].” The rally builds on a national campaign, organized by Corporate Accountability International and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood with the support of the Chicago Teachers Union, the National Education Association and more than 50 state and local teachers unions, for McDonald’s to end McTeacher’s Nights, the corporation’s most exploitative form of kid-targeted marketing. It also amplifies the call of a growing movement of parents and health professionals who are demanding McDonald’s end its kid-targeted marketing, and an increasing number of institutions—Cleveland Clinic among the most recent—that are severing ties with the corporation.
Chicago Public Schools adopted the Local School Wellness and Healthy Snack and Beverage policies in 2012, which require fundraisers to meet certain nutritional criteria. However, McDonald’s has exploited a loophole to host school-targeted marketing events called McTeacher’s Nights in its stores. At McTeacher’s Nights, McDonald’s recruits teachers to “work” behind counters, serving burgers, fries and soda to their students and their students’ families. Schools typically receive only 15 to 20 percent of the event’s proceeds, often amounting to only one to two dollars per student.
To date, McDonald’s has held at least 49 McTeacher’s Night events in the Chicago area in the past two years. In October, the Chicago Teacher’s Union (CTU) joined a national call from teachers unions across the country for McDonald’s to stop McTeacher’s Nights. CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey attended the McDonald’s shareholders’ meeting in 2015, taking executives to task for the corporat
ion’s marketing in schools.
Stronger health and wellness policies would severely limit fast food corporations’ abilities to use classrooms as billboards and teachers as brand ambassadors. McDonald’s, the industry’s leader in school-targeted marketing, has long used a host of tactics to targets students in classrooms, from sending Ronald McDonald into schools to McTeacher’s Nights and the so-called “nutrition education” film 540 Meals. “Chicago has an opportunity to lead the country in stopping these predatory marketing tactics.” said Lilly Adams, a field organizer with Chicago’s Value [the] Meal campaign at Corporate Accountability International, “As we work to find solutions to the many challenges facing Chicago’s schools, we have to ensure that children’s health is put before McDonald’s bottom line.”
“In the face of the challenges facing our public school system...the last thing we can allow is for one of the world’s most powerful corporations to take advantage of these institutions to promote their brand, create poor dietary habits, and perpetuate the diet-related disease epidemic we currently face,” said Saria Lofton, former CPS School Nurse and former Executive Board Member at CTU. In response to McDonald’s exploitation of schools and hospitals, this week, hundreds of people in Boston, Minneapolis, Houston and Tampa are also calling on McDonald’s and other junk food corporations to end targeted marketing via schools and other institutions. The groups are calling on school boards and hospital administrators to strengthen existing policies and sever ties with junk food corporations. In the coming weeks, the Chicago-based coalition will continue to organize local teachers, health professionals, community groups, and parents to call on the Chicago Board of Education to take action and eliminate junk food marketing in Chicago Public Schools.
By: Kati Gilson
McDonalds and corporate 'reform'
First of all, fast food violates CPS Policy on “wellness”. That policy includes nutrition and physical health. Second, McDonalds is working with Pearson, the massive testing corporation. This now explains why the students at Sumner Elementary School, who are opting out, have been talking about McDonalds -- and how they've been told they won't “get any.”