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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:30
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 10-09-2003 19:53
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#1
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Going too far? Banning peanut butter sandwiches because of ONE childs allergy...
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Support Apolyton
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(I know, think, where Che will stand on this one.  )
quote:
One 5-year-old's allergy leads to class peanut ban
Dozens of parents at PTA meeting question lunch searches, nurse
An East Bay elementary school's ban on peanut butter sandwiches and other nut products in its kindergarten classes has some parents questioning whether school district administrators overreacted to concerns for one allergic child.
At the center of the storm is a 5-year-old boy enrolled at Valle Verde Elementary School in Walnut Creek. He suffers from "peanut and tree nut" allergies that his mother says are life-threatening.
As a result, school officials have taken extraordinary steps in Pod C, a group of kindergarten classrooms at Valle Verde that share a common central area.
The parents of other kindergarten students were informed of the situation in a letter from school officials, who decreed that "all kindergarten students will begin the day by washing hands with soap and water . . . supervised by classroom staff."
Then they learned that a licensed vocational nurse has been hired to monitor the student. On the first day of school, parents said, their kids' backpacks and lunch boxes were searched for peanut butter sandwiches and such.
District spokeswoman Sue Berg acknowledged that "the principal said the first day they did have to confiscate or set aside" some food.
That was enough to get the petitions out and by Monday night's PTA meeting more than 70 people had signed their names to a demand that school officials explain what steps have been taken and why they were necessary.
The PTA session, which drew between 150 and 200 people and was the largest turnout PTA President Kim Moore had ever seen, produced few answers from school officials who declined to discuss specifics.
Many of those attending questioned why the boy couldn't be schooled at home if his condition is so severe.
"My son is allergic to dust mites," said one woman. "Can we get rid of dust mites on campus?"
The allergic boy's mother, Leora Cope, didn't speak at the meeting and later flatly rejected suggestions from others in the audience that the school was overreacting to her son's condition.
"My child's allergies are life-threatening," she said. "If he contacts peanut oil, it could threaten his life. This is a lot different than dust mites."
She said with the measures taken by the school, her son faces no threat. "This is nothing new. This is a situation of parents who are not informed." (  JT )
For years, schools across the nation have struggled with how to balance the needs of severely allergic child -- like the one in Walnut Creek -- with the desires of children who love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But the question remains: How far should schools, airlines and other institutions go to accommodate people with severe allergies?
Moore, the PTA president, said she initially questioned the steps taken by the Valle Verde officials, but after researching allergies on the Internet came to agree with their position.
"Allergies vary on a spectrum," she said. "Here we have a child who reacts very violently to the touch of even peanut oil. What we are talking about is life or death."
Although the allergic reaction to peanuts is not rare, and the 5-year-old is not the first student with it to attend the school, experts say the severity of the reaction can vary.
Walnut Creek allergist and immunologist Dr. Nancy Mozelsio earlier in the day told The Chronicle that it is not unusual for schools to create a "nut- free zone" for allergic students. Children are asked not to bring nut products to class, and even items like coconut sunblock are checked.
"That works quite well," says Mozelsio. "I would say that in most cases having the child in a nut-free zone, being careful not to share food, and not eating anything not packed by mom or dad should be fine."
It's possible that this 5-year-old's reactions might be so severe as to be a threat, but that would be very unusual, Mozelsio said.
"I would say having someone (a nurse) go around with that person and searching lunch boxes is a bit excessive, in my opinion," she said. "There have been a couple of cases written up of reactions from people who experienced a reaction just touching or breathing peanut dust. But I think there's a little hysteria involved. That's not typical of what we see."
Alicia McCormack, chair of the school safety committee and first vice president of the Valle Verde PTA, worries that the salary for the nurse is the reason that the school, financially strapped like most in the state, has lost an instructional assistant.
"We made a real effort not to let the budget cuts affect our school," McCormack said. "But all I know is we are down one IA and up a nurse."
Valle Verde Principal Carolyn Kreuscher said hiring the nurse would not siphon funds away from other school programs.
Some parents say that rather than impose restrictions and search lunches, the matter could have been handled with less draconian measures.
"Look," says Kathryn Stewart, a clinical psychologist who works with special education high school students, "my son (now 15) is allergic to peanuts and an alumni of Valle Verde. This kind of nonsense makes me crazy.
"By kindergarten, and certainly by first grade, my son was able to say, 'What is in that?' " she said. "Searching a lunch box is insane. This goes to personal responsibility not changing the rest of the world to fit you." |
Precisely, Kathryn. What more can you say than that?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic.../09/MN79933.DTL
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