Got All A's? Here's Your Happy Meal!
When we first read this story, we thought, wow, whatever marketing genius at McDonald's headquarters thought this was a good idea should be fired. There was no way this wouldn't bring about some bad press for the fast food chain. But then we realized that it was a local franchisee who made a deal with the Seminole County school district. It turns out that a dozen large food companies agreed not to run ads that specifically target children under 12, in an effort to curb the obesity epidemic in this country; these limits, however, apparently do not extend to children's report cards.
The Florida flap started after Susan Pagan's daughter, Catherine, a 4th grader at Red Bug Elementary School, recently came home with her report card. "She was so excited because she was on honor roll," Pagan said. "She looked at me and said, 'I'm entitled to a reward.'"We went to a private elementary school in Miami-Dade County more than 10 years ago, and we vividly remember getting free personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut for good grades. (We were total nerds, so we ate a lot of pizza.) Granted, food wasn't quite so political then and obesity wasn't quite the hot-button issue that it is now. So this isn't anything new, but because it's McDonald's and because of the political climate, everyone's up in arms. Definitely a bad move on the part of the school district.Pagan looked at the envelope and saw that students who got all A's and B's, or who had good attendance or citizenship records, were entitled to one Happy Meal, with either a hamburger, cheeseburger or Chicken McNuggets.
"It kind of shook me," Pagan said. "I had to explain to her, we don't eat at these places. I was placed in the position of being the bad guy." She took her concerns to the Seminole County School District, which includes 27,000 elementary school students in the Orlando area.
Bill Vogel, the district's superintendent, said Pagan's was the first such complaint he's heard, even though a similar report card program had been in place for about 10 years. Pizza Hut, which offered a personal pan pizza for good grades, dropped out this year, replaced by McDonald's.
McDonald's food-for-grades prize criticized [Sun-Sentinel]
