Free State High School senior Caleb Powers said Monday the Lawrence school board was overstepping its bounds by considering elimination of popular soft drinks from school vending machines.

“It’s really not the board’s place to come in and say, ‘You can’t have this,'” he said at the board’s meeting.

The board made no decision Monday about altering offerings of carbonated Coke and Pepsi beverages in machines at seven secondary schools.

Instead, Supt. Randy Weseman was directed to develop for the board options for new vending contracts in the district that include everything from the status quo to an outright ban on soft drinks.

Students and staff from junior high schools and high schools joined the board in lengthy debate about the free will of youths, the potential damage caused by marketing “empty-calorie” drinks to teenagers and the implications for student fund raising if big-name soft drinks were yanked.

In the last school year, 145,000 bottles or cans of soft drinks were bought at Lawrence secondary schools. That brought in more than $50,000 in commissions.

The issue is so controversial, Weseman said, because it boils down to “a discussion about values.”

When Monday’s debate was suspended, it appeared a 4-3 majority on the board remained interested in ending sales of at least some types of soft drinks in the machines. That majority is composed of Rich Minder, Leni Salkind, Austin Turney and Leonard Ortiz.

Minder said he didn’t buy the argument that the board shouldn’t be involved in decisions about what products sit on vending machine racks.

¢ 6News video: Students object to proposal to remove sodas at school¢ Letter: Soda a side issue (10-6-03)¢ Letter: Soda revenue (10-2-03)¢ District majority wants to can cola sales (9-26-03)¢ School board to fight cola wars (9-21-03)¢ Editorial: Brought to you by … (7-02-03)¢ Take a stand: Schools fuel soda-pop trend (6-12-03)¢ Board set to approve LHS contract with Coca-Cola (1-12-03)¢Board revamps soda contract plans (12-03-02)¢ District wants to keep tabs on soda contracts (12-02-02)

“Students have a lot of choices and so do faculty,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a choice about what we sell to kids.”

Other board members — Linda Robinson, Sue Morgan and Cindy Yulich — feel strongly that dumping soft drinks would be a mistake.

Robinson said the district couldn’t afford to forgo revenue from soda sales.

“This is the wrong battle at the wrong time,” she said.

Morgan said she didn’t think it was her place to tell teenagers what to drink.

“I don’t want to get into making these decisions for people.”

Surveys presented by students indicated that more than 85 percent of students at Free State and Lawrence high schools want to keep soft drinks available in vending machines.

About the same percentage indicated they would leave high school campuses at lunch to get a soft-drink fix if it was no longer available in school.

Ortiz said if the pull of sodas was that great, “maybe there is a problem.”

However, a coalition of students from Southwest Junior High School said their survey indicated most students weren’t habitual consumers of soft drinks, but revenue from the machines — which are only turned on after school at junior highs — helped support student projects.

“There is a sense of pride, belonging and connection to the school when students are able to say: ‘We purchased a $4,000 handicapped-accessible water fountain for our track,'” said ninth-grader Clare Robinson.