Dad buys ad to chide snack policy

A full-page advertisement in Monday’s Daily Inter Lake has stirred up a buzz in Kalispell Public Schools.

The author and financier of the ad, Dr. Peter Barran of Kalispell, has prided himself on being a thorn in the side of the school district, which he feels is restricting his children’s rights as well as his rights as a taxpayer and parent.

“They’ve crossed the line more times than I can turn my back on,” said Barran, a single father of three who is a physician at the Veterans Affairs Clinic in Kalispell.

“My children have been consistently persecuted at school. I could just roll over and buy a house in Whitefish and take my children out of the district, but I’m a child of the ’60s. We stand up for what is right.”

As readers of his ad can attest, a fruit cup was the final straw.

According to Barran, his daughter’s teacher at Edgerton Elementary School told her she could not eat a fruit cup during class time. Her fourth-grade class could only bring in an approved item, such as fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, nuts and cheese.

According to Barran’s letter:

“The school needs permission to take your child out of school for a field trip. The school needs your permission for the dentist to come in and do a free screening exam. Now tell me why is it that the school feels they can tell me what my child can eat, and deny her food if I send in something they don’t approve of? Is this an issue for Child Protective Services? Because not letting a child eat sure sounds like abuse to me.”

The classroom policy, which is not districtwide, much less schoolwide, is seen by Barran as an issue in which “over the last 20 years, public schools have slowly but successfully taken away many of our rights as parents to control what happens to our children in school.”

The advertisement, which was submitted and signed under the name “P. Barron, MD,” has flummoxed Edgerton and the district.

Jen Stein, assistant principal at Edgerton, sent an email Tuesday morning that was distributed districtwide expressing her concern with Barran’s methods of complaint.

“The individual who took out this full page ad has been in email and phone contact with building and district administration regarding his concerns,” she wrote. “On each occasion he has been encouraged to visit with the classroom teacher to better understand the rationale behind the expectations and to see if a mutually amenable solution could be reached. As of today, he has refused to have this discussion with the classroom teacher.”

Barran admitted he has not spoken with his daughter’s fourth-grade teacher but instead went to administrators.

“Why did I go all the way up the ladder? I think it’s a ‘parent’s right’ issue,” he said. “I think snack time is not a control time. I want an answer from the school system. The point isn’t that he is limiting kids from eating things; it’s that the school district is allowing him to limit it.”

Stein said a teacher’s snack time varies from class to class. Some teachers allow no snacks; some allow snacks that will not be noisy, messy or generate a lot of garbage.

Other issues Barran is concerned about include whether his children have a right to be on a school bus and the zero-tolerance policy on the playground.

By Barran’s own admission, his 10-year-old son has been disciplined approximately three dozen times in the past year after calling names and getting into shoving matches on the playground, at the bus stop and on the bus.

The boy’s bus privileges have been suspended, according to Barran.

However, Barran views what he considers aggressions against his children as part of a larger issue.

“Big gains are made in little steps,” he said. “If the teacher can tell a student what they can’t eat for snack, maybe they will tell them what they can’t eat for lunch. Why are they making a big deal of it?”

Stein’s email said there is nothing unusual about teachers establishing classroom policies.

“The building and district administration recognize and support our teachers in setting classroom expectations and parameters,” she wrote. “And will continue to encourage parents to visit directly with their child’s teacher when they might have concerns with any of the expectations set (snacks, homework, discipline policies, etc.).”

She said Barran’s children are not treated any differently or held to any other standard than other children, and in fact the teachers of the school “adore those children.”

In his letter, Barran also made a pitch as a write-in candidate for county superintendent of schools, a position for which Jack Eggensperger is running unopposed.

“In the absence of any volunteers between now and election day, put my name in as a ‘write-in candidate’ on the Voter’s Ballot if you like. I like my job as a physician, but I like my rights as a parent even more.”

Barran also encouraged parents to join him in his bid to “take back control of our children in a Public School System that is nationally becoming more and more like the kind of educational setting George Orwell might have written about.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.