Board Reviews Policies on Nutrition, Dating Violence

The Millburn Board of Education reviewed Monday on first reading a policy on that outlines guidelines for dealing with cases of verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse at school.

They also reviewed a nutritional policy that cuts out whole milk, 2 percent milk and foods of little to no nutritional value, including anything with sugar as the first ingredient.

The Dating Violence policy requires any staff member to report any incidents they see or hear about to the principal, whether the abuse occurred in person or electronically through emails, texting (and "sexting") or social media. 

Board Member Sam Levy presented the policy to the board and explained that it is an extension, in part, to the Harrassment, Intimidation and Bullying policy that went into effect at the beginning of the school year.

"It's intended to fill some holes in the HIB law," he said.

In addition, the policy calls for education for students to understand what dating violence is and what they can do about it and so they realize it is also a matter of one person trying to control or exert power over another.

Incidents of dating violence will be kept in files separate from the students’ academic or discipline files so that the information will not be inadvertently released, according to the policy.

If a student is found to be in violation of the policy, depending on the circumstances, he or she could face the following consequences: detention, suspension, expulsion and having he incident reported to police.

Depending on the circumstances, there could also be parent conferences, pupil counseling, peer support group and corrective instruction.

Under the nutritional policy, schools would not be allowed to serve whole milk, two-percent milk or any foods with sugar as the first ingredient or that have more than 8 percent fat.

One parent asked if that meant she could not bring cupcakes on her son's birthday week.

Levy said that technically, that's already part of the current policy but how much it is enforced he could not say.

Events such as PTO sponsored parties or after-school activities are exempt, he said.

Levy said the new guidelines were mandated by the state Department of Education.

The board will not vote on the policies until after a second reading.