Did you also have a list of "permitted" snacks?? Our school did. We had to send in a snack, but it had to be a "healthy" snack. We weren't allowed to send in cookies or chips. It had to be fruit or carrot sticks. If we were feeling particularly adventurous, we could send in popcorn! Also, only milk or juice. One of my daughter's friends actually had her chocolate milk taken away from her.
I remember telling a coworker (a childless one) about the list of permitted snacks. She was appalled, and wanted to know when our schools began to be run by fascists!
We haven't had permitted snacks per se, but there were strong suggestions about keeping it wholesome. My wife got upset with me once when I secretly slipped those little packs of candy cigarettes inside the snack bags. I was just happy that i found a store that had carried old-fashioned candy.
I love your co-worker's depiction of "gifted parents." In our elementary school there is so much teacher shopping and lobbying for inclusion in the gifted program. There are approximately 6-7 classes within each grade and there are large groups of kids, who always are placed in the same homeroom every year because of the "gifted parents." They always end up with their teacher of choice too.
The school always worships these people too. When the after school bus for the "gifted parents'" kids was running late, the school administration hurried to empty a bus, which was pulling out of the school to take home the kids of the "less glamorous" parents, and then filled it with the kids from the gifted neighborhood, so they could get home on time.
SB, did you ever see the episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" where they were entertaining the obnoxious parents of a rude, obnoxious and manipulating kid, whom they labelled as gifted. Nobody was allowed to discipline the brat because he was gifted. The phony smiles dropped from the parents' faces when Raymond's wife referred to him as "special." Anyway, those are a perfect depiction of the gifted parents.
