Food Allergies and Public Schools ??

[momofjandl]

Does your child have food allergies? How does your school or classroom handle it? Nut free table, nut free school? Is there an allergy task force or anything? How did you go about getting rules enforced?

DS has several life threatening food allergies. He just started preschool this year and it is part of the public school program and in the elementary school. Per the nurse and myself, the classroom needs to be free of his allergens.

A letter went home via email to all the parents letting them know about the allergies, that they are life threatening, and that none of the listed items could be brought to school. The parents were asked to sign and return the form.

I also emailed the parents explaining allergies a bit and that I could be contacted with any questions or concerns. And I offered food recipes and mix alternatives.

A mother emailed the director stating this-(hopefully she's not a member of this board. If she is by the off chance...I'd be more than happy to talk to you about it offline...)

"We do not agree with this approach on food allergies. It is not fair that our children have to be deprived for other allergy issues.
We will not sign the note that you sent from the school nurse.
Notes of this nature should come from you not the parent. We will try to comply. I am sure that you keep the class snacks aligned and we will be aware when it comes to birthday/holiday/etc events."

Am I wrong to be POed? I really wasn't expecting this. I've done my research and food allergies are considered a disability and covered under section 504, meaning that DS can not be discriminated against and must be provided a safe learning environment.

I basically feel like this mom is saying I value my child having a birthday cupcake over your child's life. The nurse not did indeed make it clear that the allergies are life threatening.

I've emailed the director to get a better grasp on what the school policy is. I don't really feel very comfortable with her "We'll try to comply" statement.

Am I totally over reacting?
Ruth

[JBaxter]

All notes SHOULD come from the school I would be annoyed if another parent emailed me on an email addy I only listed for school and then gave me a recipe to use. Many Many parents work 40+hrs a week and pick up the cupcakes/cookies at a bakery because they simpley dont have time to stay up and bake 30 cupcakes after work/homework/dinner/family time. Im sure they are looking at it from their kiddos point of view being one child can keep theirs from having a special treat. Is that fare ... no but I can see where the other parents are coming from. Im sure the parents will try to keep to your childs safe list but they dont want to be held liable for a mistake. I would not sign it. I know lots of parents who dont read every lable ( like I do) It may truely be an accident the bring a forbidden item in but I can see how signing a paper seems "legal" My childs issues are not life threating but I pack him a party bag so I ensure he only gets what I want.
How do you address lunches? What if he sits next to someone with a "banned" substance? We are dye free/organic so my goal with Nathan is just that if I forget his "approved" granola bar has nut products it would be a accident but if in a rush I tossed it in his lunch bag but it "could" happen here. Right now I have 3 kids going to school 3 different times. Mornings are crazy.

[gatorruth]

Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear... My son goes to a private pre K. There is one boy who is allergic to peanuts in the class. A note was sent home stating that that due to his allergies, the class needs to be nut free. My son doesn't like PB and J. Keep that in mind, but I was a bit peeved that the whole class needs to deal with one child's issues. Some kids live on PB and J. At this age, the child with the allergies should know enough to stay away from the obvious allergens, and should have an epi pen kept at school just in case.

I wonder how the mom of this kid in DS's class deals with going to the mall-- what if they eat at a table and the person who just ate there had a bag of nuts??? Or the grocery store- there are plenty of bins of nuts around.

I personally don't blame the other mom for being defensive and peturbed. She feels like I feel, but she just had a forum to tell you and I have to suck it up and 'play nice in the sandbox'... I'm off on a tangent, sorry for hijacking, but I guess this is the way of the world now...

[nfowife]

When I taught, there was a child at the school with a life-threatening peanut allergy. The way it was set up was that the entire school was supposed to be peanut free in terms of blatant nuts (like no peanut butter, reeses candy, that type of thing). In his classroom it went much further. Besides being 100% no nuts, if you went into the classroom you had to step on this special shoe-washing mat and wash your hands at the door. The child also left each day right before lunch and was homeschooled the 2nd half of the day because he really couldn't be 100% safe in the cafeteria during lunchtime. The school district provided him with a computer for his home, materials, the assignments, and the teacher of the classroom would conference with the mom in terms of what he missed that 2nd half.
That all said, every family with a child in the classroom was approached before the year began, apprised of the situation, and had to agree to the terms set forth. It didn't seem to be a problem in our school, but when I started there he was in 2nd grade so by then maybe the system was in place and there weren't so many feathers being ruffled.
I'm sorry you are having some issues. Your child has just as much right to be there as they do, hopefully you can find an appropriate solution and safe placement for your son.

[bcafe]

My DS has a peanut allergy. When the time comes for him to go to school, I will not be worried about him staying away from the allergen. I will be worried about others inadvertantly exposing him to peanuts. A five year old child does not know if another five year old has just washed his peanut butter fingers. Maybe parents would change their thinking if they witnessed a child having an anaphylactic reaction.
ETA: DD LOVES PB&J. In fact, that is all she would eat if possible. However, when DS was diagnosed with the allergy we switched to cashew butter and she is none the wiser. There are alternatives and I would absolutely be willing to subsidize an alternative to peanut butter if it would keep my child safe in school.

[sweetpea]

I am horrified.

I think if your dc was the one with a life threatening issue you would change your tune immediately.

May I suggest you educate yourself on peanut allergies and anaphylaxis?

http://www.anaphylaxis.ca/content/whatis/myths.asp

[michellep]

Just trying to understand this better, but the link you gave seems to dismiss some of the fears that result in turning schools into peanut-free zones. For example it says that the smell of peanut butter did not trigger reactions in any of these cases and that neither did nut dust. There has not been a rise in fatal reactions (at least in Ontario) and none have occured in schools since 1994 (again, we're just talking Ontario here). All of this is on the Answers page http://www.anaphylaxis.ca/content/whatis/myths_quiz.asp

I understand your reaction to the previous post, but also feel as if some of the reasons for insisting that no other child even have pb are called into question in the link you provided.

Our experience, public and private, is that the schools themselves have not provided any peanut products whatsoever. Within each classroom it is decided whether children can bring it in their own lunch. PB&J is on the ok list for both of the classes my kids are in this year, but over the summer it wasn't. It's also been my experience that it's the family of the child with the allergy who is responsible for providing alternative snacks rather than insisting that all parents use only approved recipes when bringing food into class.

-M

[ilovetivo]

with peanut butter, it's how sticky it is, how hard it is to clean, and can leave residue everywhere (chairs, books, tables, water fountains etc)

To clarify my post somewhere in here, i believe in food free classrooms, not peanut free or nut free schools. However, since our school is so small, i'm glad my dd's preschool is pn/tn free - which for our school means that director buys all the food and no outside food isallowed in the school. All kids wash when they come in.

[ilovetivo]

Gatorruth - Let me preface this by saying I'm not flaming. I'm just informing.

I believe classrooms should be food free, not just peanut free or whatever. No child should have to be in constant fear of "what if" while they are trying to learn. Peanut free or any allergy free room/school just leaves the door open to people smuggling stuff in "just because" or "I forgot" or "I didn't have time to read the label". An education is every child's right. Each child is different and each child may have different accommodations that need to be made to learn in a safe and comfortable environment. Whether they be food allergies or wheelchair access or they can't see the board etc. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act says "Students with a disability are by law afforded a “free and appropriate public education.� A food allergy may be considered a disability under this law." (http://www.foodallergyinitiative.com...b_section_id=3)

With all due respect, 5 year olds with food allergies may be very aware of their allergens, however, they do not know what's in another child's lunch, if they've washed up etc. They're only 5. Even 25 year olds don't know how to stay away from their allergens 100% of the time. Please see my post with the terribly long and very sad list of fatal food allergy reactions in people of all ages...people that are very very aware of their allergens. http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/dcboar...opic_id=396578

For me, I don't let my daughter sit at any public table without washing it down well first with Wet Ones or something similar. I don't let her walk around the grocery store. We don't go down the aisle with the bulk bins of nuts (dust in the air), we have a cart cover on the grocery cart. I know I can speak for a lot (if not most) FA moms when I say precautions are taken everywhere we go. Some places we just don't go and some things we just don't do. The risks are too high.

Here's a great letter from a non-food allergic parent. It might help you understand where FA parents come from. I didn't not write it and I do have permission to reprint it. She says it much better than I could.

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Dear Parents and Guardians:

I am writing this letter to you because your school has decided to implement a ban on peanuts, tree nuts, and/or other foods that have been associated with life-threatening allergies, and I know the initial reaction you may have regarding such a ban.

I am the mother of a little girl who started school this year. About two weeks before school started I read in a local newspaper that the school she will be attending has decided to put such a ban into effect.

My first reaction was one of shock, but it quickly turned into complete ANGER! I couldn’t believe that the school would actually do something that drastic because ONE child had an allergy. Since when did the misfortunes of one dictate the rule for the majority? I rallied support together, I wrote to the newspapers, I called television stations, and I put up posters expressing my outrage and encouraging parents who felt the same way to attend the next school board meeting and “let our voices be heard�. I even drafted up petitions to have the members of the school board removed so that a new school board could be elected, one that looked out for the needs of every child instead of just one. After all, nobody was going to tell me that I couldn’t send my picky eater to school with a peanut butter sandwich! Then I went online to get some ammunition.

What I got however, was something completely different. I got an education. I stumbled across a site for people with life-threatening allergies and the parents of children with life-threatening allergies. The first thing I found out was that, although rare, it is a lot more common than I had realized, but being angry I posted my question, Do they really think that a ban is necessary?. I used all my arguments. If a child is allergic to bees, do you keep all the kids in at recess? If a child is in a wheel chair, do you build a ramp or tear out the stairs? I mean after all, there are other allergies out there, and there is no way to guarantee that the school will be completely free from these foods, so where do you draw the line?

At first I wasn’t open at all to hear their reply, I was just venting, but then I really started reading what they had to say, and it was then that I started learning. You see… I put my daughter on the bus for the first time in her life. I was afraid she wouldn’t find her classroom. I was afraid she would forget to raise her hand before she spoke. I was afraid she would get on the wrong bus coming home, but what I wasn’t afraid of was that I would get a call from the school saying that my daughter wouldn’t be coming home; she is being rushed to the hospital by ambulance because of a common, everyday peanut butter sandwich. It was then that I realized what these parents are going though. Some don’t have the luxury of worrying about little things.

These parents aren’t trying to take anything away from our kids; they are trying to keep their kids safe. I looked back at my initial reaction so I could figure out what had made me so mad, and when I was completely honest with myself, I found the answer. I was mad because I was going to be inconvenienced. I was willing to put a child’s life in danger so my daughter could eat a sandwich, and what did that say about me? I mean, if I saw a dog attacking any child wouldn’t I do whatever I could to protect that child? And if that is the case, why am I so opposed to eliminating peanut butter from 5 meals out of the 21 she will have in the course of a week?

The fact of the matter is you don’t keep all the kids in at recess, but you don’t put a child with a bee sting allergy in a lunchroom full of bees either.

The fact is EVERY child is entitled to a “free and appropriate public education in a least restrictive environment�, translated that means the school has a legal responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for ALL children, and where do you draw the line? You draw the line when the unique needs of the community served by the school have been met.

It’s not easy to put your child in the hands of strangers when you know that many of them may have just eaten, or are bringing to lunch, the same thing that is poison to your child, and many of these parents would home school if they could, but just like you and I, sometimes that is not an option.

The parents of children with life-threatening allergies don’t expect us all to learn this over night, and they don’t expect us to shop for our children as if they had this allergy, and while they know that the school will never be completely free from these foods, one less sandwich, or one less snack containing these foods being brought into the schools, will be one less risk to their child’s life.

I am not saying that it hasn’t been a struggle at times, but you have to ask yourselves… Is convenience really more important than life? In my book, that answer is no, so any small inconvenience I have is worth it.
Sincerely,
Lisa Turner

[TaChapm]

Wow...That letter was so well stated! Tyler and Jackson both have severe nut allergies and egg allergies. I was just at the allergist today with Tyler discussing ways to keep the boys "safer" in public places.

Before having a child with allergies I probably would have thought that some of the precautions were overkill but I would have done them for the well being of the child. I hate that any kid might have to go without because of my child's allergy but at least they can go home and enjoy that treat! I am so sad that my boys will never enjoy a PB&J Sandwitch or a Snickers candy bar! :(

Tara
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