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To the editor:
In 2025, Ipswich adopted a wellness policy for its schools that raised concerns from parents and students who thought it was overly restrictive. (It ended bake sales as fundraisers, for example.)
Recently, the insanity of this policy was put on display when Superintendent Brian Blake, who was apparently vacationing, got a call alerting him that a “parent” had informed the school that the wellness policy was being violated during the Choralfest potluck.
Blake, who did not interrupt his travel the prior week to participate in a contentious school budgeting debate, was concerned enough that he gave the order from afar that offending foodstuffs be removed, leaving students hungry and parents annoyed at the waste and disruption.
It seems that a few people with strong opinions about what others should eat are attempting to take a level of control over our town that isn’t healthy.
Brian Blake, School Committee Chair Dianna Freehan, and others leading this movement have repeatedly said the policy is “required” and have implied that we are powerless to do anything different. It may well be “required” that we have some policy, but not this policy. Those pushing this radical agenda claim “laws,” both state and federal, require their policy and have intimated that there could be consequences for towns such as Ipswich being “out of compliance.”
Contrary to what has been represented, these draconian rules about consumption are not being foisted upon us by a government intent on sapping all enjoyment from childhood and having a weird obsession with what taxpayers and their children may consume, but rather by a handful of people with extreme views about healthy living who have a loose understanding of (or intentionally misrepresent) “the law” and just enough power to get a vacationing superintendent to enforce their agenda.
While it’s a ridiculous and silly example of people abusing the tiniest amount of power imaginable, it’s always worth being vigilant in the face of overreach.
While less important than its practical impact on our kids (it sends a bizarre message about priorities and implies a one-dimensional view of healthy living, for one), it’s worth noting that episodes like the Choralfest debacle make us the avatar of this state and region that causes people to think we’re nuts. In short, this stuff is annoying and people hate it.
It would be easier to believe that this ordeal was part of a Portlandia sketch than real life, but since, incredibly, it seems to be a thing that happened in a town where I pay taxes, I think it’s important to say aloud that it’s embarrassing.
Per the school’s website, for breakfast today, my children could be served French toast sticks, applesauce cups, and maple syrup (processed, I assume?) and a dessert of… Teddy Grahams. With all due respect to whoever crafted these meals, any government that regards this as a nutritious breakfast suitable for children and consistent with our all-important wellness policy would have a hard time throwing a flag on meatballs served at an event that was meant to build community and support children’s musical endeavors.
It’s hard to picture what types of enforcement Blake or Freehan imagine from the Food Police, but I would bet almost anything that, had a state or federal official gotten the call about Choralfest while on vacation, they’d have stayed in the pool.
We still have some rights, the least of which is to support our kids and their activities and their friends even if that means making cookies.
This isn’t to suggest the school and our town shouldn’t have an interest in wellness and encourage healthy living, but there needs to be room for common sense. I don’t want to live in a world, or a town, where parents must look over their shoulder while baking brownies or whose Dietary Politburo should be the basis of a South Park episode.
I suggest we ignore this policy and wait for state or federal officials to take food we make for our kids’ events from our cold, dead hands; unless we just serve the Teddy Grahams left over from school breakfast.
Isaac Garcia-Dale
Ipswich
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