Celebrating Student Birthdays
Recognizing and celebrating the birthday of our students and their unique place in the school community is important to us.
The incidence of students with dangerous food allergies and medical conditions such as diabetes has prompted us to rethink food consumption in our elementary schools.
Doing everything we can to ensure our students’ health, safety, and well-being is our number one priority!
We welcome parents working with school staff to provide a special recognition of their child’s birthday. However, with the beginning of this school year, we will not participate in celebrating birthdays with food of any kind, including cupcakes, packaged sweets or other food or beverage treats.
Building principals will work with their staff to share special recognition of each child’s birthday, and parents are encouraged to share reasonable non-food alternatives for celebrating their child with classmates. Non-food alternatives could include:
- Special pencils
- Stickers
- Erasers
- Dollar-store word games or puzzles
- A “class” puzzle or game for students to use in celebration of your child
- A book that could be added to the classroom or school library in honor of your child and his/her birthday. (The book can be shared as part of the celebration day)
As a district, we are confident that all parents can assist us with celebrating each child in ways that do not adversely impact the health, safety, and well-being of the growing number of students for whom food allergens and other conditions are an issue.
Please contact your building principal with any questions you may have.
