From Ohio’s Middletown Journal: Students who suffer from potentially life-threatening food allergies now have more protection at school. The Board of Education Monday night, June 14, approved a policy that provides universal guidelines for staff training on how to deal with preventing and treating severe allergic reactions. — Read more here.
This letter published by the Cape Cod Times in Massachusetts speaks to the need for understanding of the issues faced by school-going children with anaphylactic food allergies: As the mother of a child with a severe peanut allergy, I would like to comment on the recent article “Nut-free policy divides school. My husband and I have dealt with upset parents for the past six years. Teachers and children in my child’s classes have been wonderful, caring, and careful, for the most part. But for some reason, parents get so angry about the issue. – Read the rest of the letter here.
The Hillsdale Public School district in New Jersey has developed a comprehensive school policy regarding students with food allergies. Check it out here, especially if you are trying to develop a plan for your school district.
The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) has launched the FAAN College Network, a new web-based program that could change the way students with food allergies choose where to go to college by providing information that makes researching a potential school easier. Until now, prospective college students were left on their own to research questions about food allergy management at each college or university. FAAN’s College Network serves as a clearinghouse of information enabling college-bound students to learn about different colleges’ approaches to food allergy management. They will also find contact information for people who can best answer questions about how food allergies are addressed at each college. – Get more info here.
From Parrysound.com (Ontario, Canada): Nuts and fish could kill Jacob Healey. The 11-year-old Parry Sound boy has severe allergies that worry his mother Suzanne Gingrich whenever he’s not with her. After reading an article in the Beacon Star’s Panther section about Parry Sound High School banning shellfish and nuts, Gingrich can’t help but think of her son’s future. – Read more here.
From The Adirondack Daily Enterprise: …Guidelines on how to manage food allergies vary from school to school, with many lacking the money or expertise to come up with food allergy management plans. (U.S. Senator Charles) Schumer is pushing the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Act, which would establish voluntary national guidelines for schools, preschools and after-school programs to deal with food allergies, and $30 million total in grant funding schools could apply for to implement the plan. – Read more here.
From Newsday.com: Home-baked items in West Babylon classes have been banned under an amended wellness policy approved last night that requires that all snack foods served during the school day meet nutritional guidelines and be commercially packaged, school officials said. Under the new policy, approved by the school board in a 7-2 vote, all snack foods would have to meet nutrition guidelines set by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation or the New York State Nutrition Association’s Choose Sensibly guidelines. Read more here.
From The Newburyport News (Massachusetts): With plenty of experience adjusting to individual food allergies, Amesbury schools are taking a unique approach to making all students feel comfortable in the lunch room. Following a policy already tested at Amesbury Middle School, a new policy at Amesbury Elementary School calls for students consuming anything with nut products to sit at two designated tables. Children with peanut allergies are welcome to sit anywhere else. “We wanted to take the focus off the child and on to the product,” Amesbury Elementary School Principal Walter Helliesen said. – Read the details here.
From Florida Today (Melbourne, FL): Some Indialantic Elementary parents expressed concern this week over a letter making students — not teachers — responsible for auto-injectors used to stop serious allergic reactions. The policy affects all public schools, but only one school sent out the letter. It said an EpiPen, the trademark name for the most common device, must be kept in the school clinic unless the child has a doctor’s note, which permits him or her to keep it in a backpack. Previously, the student’s teacher would carry the EpiPen in a backpack and hand it off to another teacher for class changes. The parents worried that young students should not be made responsible. – Read the details here.
From ABC4.com (Salt Lake City, UT): Every year hundreds of Utah parents send their children to school with the fear that they may become so sick that they have to be rushed to emergency room. Some face the frightening possibility of losing their lives. The threat can be found on most school menus: peanut butter. — Read the details of how these schools attempt to keep kids with peanut allergies safe without ostracizing them.
