It is important to remember that children with food allergies are not magically protected by any plan or policy. Although plans and policies provide the framework for making schools safer, parents need to stay actively involved with their child's teachers, nurse, and classmate's parents. Because food allergies are an invisible ailment, it is easy for people to forget that a child with food allergies must not come in contact with certain foods. By staying actively involved, you can help keep your child safe by improving awareness and reinforcing the relationships with those people your child depends on everyday. It is not possible to simply drop your child off at school on the first school day in September with an EpiPen and explain everything to your child’s teacher and then leave. Parents of students with life-threatening food allergies will always have significant responsibilities in ensuring the safety of their child. There are many steps that must be taken of which the most essential are outlined below. These are the essential responsibilities. Do not put your child at risk or create unnecessary anxiety for yourself, your child, and the school by avoiding these steps now. September is an anxious time for any parent. It can be downright frightening for the parent of a child with life-threatening food allergies. Experience has shown that those parents who have taken the steps below will feel more at ease when their child starts school.
1. Obtain required documentation and prescriptions from your child’s allergist.
It is sometimes convenient to make a single appointment with your child’s allergist to obtain all of the above, although you should not fill the EpiPen prescription until August since you will want the freshest EpiPens possible. 2. Meet the school nurse. There are four important things you must do when you meet the school nurse:
The nurse will be sending out a letter to your child's classmates with the allergens that need to be avoided in the classroom. If there is any additional information that you would like to add to that letter that may be helpful to other parents you should let her know at this meeting. NOTE: It is also a good idea to bring your child to meet the nurse because you want as many people as possible to be able to recognize your child in the event that your child is experiencing an allergic reaction. 3. Complete required forms. After meeting with the nurse, there are two important forms that you will need to fill out.
NOTE: It is often difficult for new parents to anticipate all of the different situations that need to be covered on the 504 plan. Parents who have already been there can provide a significant resource. Some Reading schools have an Allergy Parent Advisor who can help answer questions and provide guidance on this process so be sure to ask your school nurse or principal if they have an APA. 4. Review and complete forms with nurse and teacher. Schedule a meeting to review these forms with your child's teacher and school nurse after they have had time to review them on their own. This gives everyone the opportunity to ask questions and fully understand one another. Also be sure to obtain signatures prior to sending your child to school. NOTE: It is very important to bring your child to meet the teacher during this meeting. It establishes an early bond between child and teacher and helps the teacher identify your child on the first day of school. It also reinforces your child's relationship with the nurse established in step 2. 5. Provide medications and dispensation form to school nurse.
Although the school has a supply of EpiPens for common areas, you will be asked to provide EpiPens for the nurse’s office and for your child’s classroom. Each school has a different practice of ensuring that an EpiPen is always nearby: some schools allow the EpiPen to “travel” with the student in a fanny pack, some schools stock them in common areas, etc.. Be sure to find out if a special type of container is needed and how the medication should be identified for your child. NOTE: Although the school nurse may inform you when your EpiPens are about to expire, do not rely on that to occur. Always keep records of the expiration dates on any EpiPens you have given to the school and replace them when necessary. Some parents also provide Benadryl to the school for minor reactions. 6. Meet the cafeteria staff, investigate foods. Depending on the number of allergies your child has, you may or may not feel comfortable with allowing your child to purchase food from the cafeteria. Regardless, it is a good idea that you and your child meet the cafeteria staff. It is important that as many people as possible be able to recognize a child who is having certain symptoms as being a child who has food allergies. You can also take this time to become comfortable with the seating plan and cleaning procedures for the lunch tables. If you are planning on purchasing food, the cafeteria managers have always been more than willing to let parents read the ingredient labels of the foods they serve. 7. Inform classroom parents. At the beginning of the school year, it is strongly recommended that you do the following:
When properly informed, classroom parents can be incredibly helpful and provide assistance in certain situations. Each school has different traditions. For example, many schools have a “Thanksgiving Feast” where the children have a presentation for the parents in the classroom and then everyone enjoys turkey, potatoes, etc. that are baked by different classroom parents. The first time we heard of this, our jaw dropped. We did not think it would be possible to send our child (who has allergies to peanut, milk, egg, and wheat) to school that day. However, because we had proactively informed each parent of our child’s allergies at the beginning of the school year, and because we were determined to make it possible for our child to participate in this tradition, we became involved in planning the feast to make it safe. We decided to cook the turkey itself since we know of a brand that is not coated with any milk or egg or anything else that might pose a problem. We spoke with other parents in the classroom to give them explicit cooking instructions for some of the other foods such as steamed vegetables (do not add butter), and then we determined which of the other foods that our child wouldn’t have. Many parents have become very savvy in their understanding of cross-contamination. For the "Thanksgiving Feast" one parent called to check if it was ok to use her can opener on a can of vegetables - she was concerned that the can might have been touched some food on another can that our child might be allergic to! This is something that we had never even thought of in our own home. The goodwill and empathy displayed by other parents is always amazing. Many classrooms also have one or two “room mothers” who help organize a handful of activities each year. These are chosen on a volunteer basis and usually require the room mother to communicate with all other classroom parents for a certain event. It is a good idea to volunteer to be a room mother or to establish a relationship with the room mother so that if there are any food-related activities you may be able to provide some guidance on how to do so safely. As this example illustrates, establishing a positive relationship with other parents is important from the beginning. It is important so that your child can participate safely in a world with food but also so that others can become educated and more aware and pass what they know on to their own children. 8. Keep school staff updated on any changes to your child’s allergies. Always inform the school nurse and teacher of any changes to your child’s allergy history. Keep all forms up to date throughout the year. 9. Suggested Timeline The essential steps above can take a lot of time. Here is a suggested timeline that gives everyone involved the appropriate amount of time to make appointments and acquire and complete documentation:
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