How Discontinued Chocolate Milk Led To A Grade-School Protest

There comes a time in every person's life when they know that they must take a stand. For one young man, the idea of the human individual standing up against insurmountable forces became another schoolyard lesson when his beloved chocolate drink was removed from the school's lunch menu.

According to NBC-affiliate KCRA TV,  the story begins when 9-year-old Jordan Reed and his classmates of Sierra Vista K-8 in Vacaville, California, noticed a startling change to his lunch menu. The school board had removed chocolate milk from the menu, as they believed it had too much sugar. This issue isn't too unheard of in the Golden State area, as San Francisco schools banned chocolate milk in 2017 (via Business Insider). But Reed wouldn't have it — chocolate milk is a child's best friend, and after all, no child worth their salt would sit back and let some grown-up take away their choice beverage without a fight. 

According to People, their teacher had actually assigned them to read a Scholastic News article about a fourth-grader petitioning for flavored milk in schools. Inspired by such a story, Reed set about making signs for all of his classmates and setting the stage for a protest to get their chocolate drink back.

As The Mercury News reported, Reed and his classmates didn't take the issue sitting down in their classroom. They instead took to their school's campus as part of a march for their chocolate milk. Holding up signs and chanting, "What do we want? Chocolate milk! When do we want it? Now!" (via an ABC 7 Instagram post), Reed and his fellow classmates walked around the school in a peaceful, but passionate protest to bring back their chocolate milk. 

The protest did yield a positive result for the students. While chocolate milk wasn't brought back to the menu as a full-time item, it would be sold one day every other week (via a WDBJ7 News tweet). Although those who may love chocolate milk a bit more than others may view this as a loss, to Reed and his classmates, it seems to have been a fair compromise. 

This isn't the first time students have taken up protests for a lunch break cause. Students in a high school in Kansas protested "healthy lunches" in 2012, as the portions they were served were far too small to keep them feeling full throughout the day (via CBS News).