Ark. OK’s Rules Limiting Snacks in Schools — Goal is ‘Educated, Healthy, Successful Children’

LITTLE ROCK – New mandatory limits on non-healthful snacks and drinks available to public school students should help change an environment in which too many Arkansas pupils have grown overweight, the state’s new chief health officer said Monday.

The state Board of Education on Monday approved new school nutrition standards that limit students’ access to vending machines, limit the sizes of sugared drinks offered and requires districts to demand more nutritious snacks be offered.

“This is a giant step to support parents, whose primary goal is to have educated, healthy, successful children. This will be an important change to the environment within which kids go to school everyday,” Dr. Joe Thompson said after the board unanimously adopted the new standards.

While some school districts have voluntarily provided students with healthier choices in school vending machines, such choices might not be available to students in other districts for years under a provision that does not require districts to change their offerings until existing vending contracts are renewed or modified.

The new rules also require school districts to begin implementing programs to provide 30 minutes of physical activity each day for students in kindergarten through 12th grade by the end of the upcoming school year.

A state study last year showed that 40 percent of Arkansas’s students are obese or overweight.

The new rules set a maximum 30:1 student-teacher ratio for K-6 physical education classes, beginning with the 2006-07 school year. Beginning in 2007-08, they mandate that elementary programs include at least 60 minutes of physical education per week, plus another 90 minutes per week of physical activities that may include such activities as recess, walking programs, intramurals and the integration of physical activity into the academic curriculum.

Students in seventh and eighth grades also will fall under the physical activities requirement in 2007-08. High school students will be required to take one semester of physical education and to receive 150 minutes of physical activity weekly, to be met through the same options.

Beginning with the 2012 school year, school districts will be required to employ certified PE instructors to teach physical eduation in grades K-12.

Board member Randy Lawson of Bentonville called the certification requirement “almost an unfunded mandate” and also complained that the 30:1 student-teacher ratio was unnecessary for PE instruction.