School birthday policy

In case you missed the Jump Start meeting, I want to inform you about Allen's policy for celebrating students' birthdays.  Celebrating a birthday at school can make children feel very special, so we want to honor that without going overboard.  Our school policy is that if you would like to bring treats for your child to share on their birthday, you may send store bought cupcakes (not homemade) and juice boxes with your child in the morning or drop them off in the school office.  We will use the last 15 minutes of the school day for the celebration.  I also request that if you are going to send treats that you also send napkins or paper plates.  You certainly don't need to send treats if you don't want to!
There are a few reasons for this policy.  First of all, we don't want to lose our valuable instructional time by taking too long celebrating birthdays.  With 27 first graders, we like to keep the celebrations short and sweet.
The purpose of having "store bought" cupcakes only is so that there is an ingredient list available for me to check for my students with allergies.  The last thing any parent or teacher wants is for a child to become ill.
Dr. Heughins would like us to please remind all parents not to send other items such as pizza or treat bags.  Save those fun things for your child's birthday party outside of school.
If you have any questions about Allen's birthday policies, please feel free to contact me.  I am open to the possibility of sending healthy snacks such as apple slices instead of cupcakes, but please contact me first.