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Teacher in the clear after feeding kids cat food

A local council in western Sweden has withdrawn its written warning against a pre-school teacher who encouraged children in her class to eat cat food earlier this year.

Published: 24 September 2008 15:30 CEST

Teacher in the clear after feeding kids cat food

Alingsås council completed its turnaround after the teacher raised the matter with the district court. The council would not comment on Wednesday as to whether it had made the right decision when issuing the warning.

“We have decided to put this behind us and move on,” council spokesman Niels Bredberg told newspaper Alingsås Tidning.

The teacher gave the children cat food to taste when the class was working on a project about cats in February.

Local media reported at the time that it was not the first time the teacher had encouraged the children to taste feline feed.

One of the children’s parents complained to the principal, Cecilia Knutsson, who decided to take action and warn the teacher.

“You have shown poor judgment in giving the children cat food,” wrote Knutsson in the teacher’s warning letter.

Knutsson described the teacher’s actions as “unethical and inappropriate.”

The teacher was given the chance to explain her actions and the educational reasoning behind the tasting. She apologized and promised that there woul be no repeat.

Several parents expressed their support for the embattled teacher.

“We have the utmost confidence in her and her otherwise sound educational work,” wrote the parents in a plea to the disciplinary board on the teacher’s behalf.

No child was forced to eat the cat food, and besides, the food poses no danger to humans, the cat-owning teacher wrote in her statement.

Inquiry calls for free after-school care for 6-9 year-olds in Sweden

“If this reform is implemented, after-school recreation centers will be accessible to the children who may have the greatest need for the activities,” said Kerstin Andersson, who was appointed to lead a government inquiry into expanding access to after-school recreation by the former Social Democrat government.

More than half a million primary- and middle-school-aged children spend a large part of their school days and holidays in after-school centres.

But the right to after-school care is not freely available to all children. In most municipalities, it is conditional on the parent’s occupational status of working or studying. Thus, attendance varies and is significantly lower in areas where unemployment is high and family finances weak.

In this context, the previous government formally began to inquire into expanding rights to leisure. The report was recently handed over to Sweden’s education minister, Lotta Edholm, on Monday.

Andersson proposed that after-school activities should be made available free of charge to all children between the ages of six and nine in the same way that preschool has been for children between the ages of three and five. This would mean that children whose parents are unemployed, on parental leave or long-term sick leave will no longer be excluded.

“The biggest benefit is that after-school recreation centres will be made available to all children,” Andersson said. “Today, participation is highest in areas with very good conditions, while it is lower in sparsely populated areas and in areas with socio-economic challenges.”

Enforcing this proposal could cause a need for about 10,200 more places in after-school centre, would cost the state just over half a billion kronor a year, and would require more adults to work in after-school centres.

Andersson recommends recruiting staff more broadly, and not insisting that so many staff are specialised after-school activities teachers, or fritidspedagod.

“The Education Act states that qualified teachers are responsible for teaching, but that other staff may participate,” Andersson said. “This is sometimes interpreted as meaning that other staff may be used, but preferably not’. We propose that recognition be given to so-called ‘other staff’, and that they should be given a clear role in the work.”

She suggested that people who have studied in the “children’s teaching and recreational programmes” at gymnasium level, people who have studied recreational training, and social educators might be used.

“People trained to work with children can contribute with many different skills. Right now, it might be an uncertain work situation for many who work for a few months while the employer is looking for qualified teachers”, Andersson said.

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