Elementary school question

omurray

For those of you who are teachers, or have children in elementary school, how does your school handle food allergies in the lunchroom?  My son was recently diagnosed with peanut/tree nut allergy.  His preschool is peanut free, but I do not think the public schools are.  I'm just curious how its usually handled?  Do the allergic kids have to sit at a different table than the rest of the kids?  If so, are they teased/ridiculed or feel left out because of this? 

DandelionMom

From what I've seen peanut allergies are pretty well understood at the public schools my girls go to.  Oldest DD's entire classroom is nut-free because one child has a nut allergy.  There is a nut-free table at her school as well.  The kids are not ridiculed.  DD often asks for a nut-free lunch so she can sit by a friend that sits at that table.

Other allergies are not quite so well understood.  We've had no end of trouble getting the school to work with us for my DDs' food issues.  And a friend's child with egg allergies has had some trouble as well (the kids' field day even involved throwing raw eggs!). 

There are so many kids with food allergies that the kids are used to it and are chill about it. 

My DDs do get left out occasionally but they rarely seem upset about it (I'm usually more upset than they are). 

Communicate with the school.  I usually present the teacher with a small packet of info about DDs' food issues, including a sheet with DDs' pics and info that they can leave for subs.  I also find it is helpful to be the class room mom so I'm involved in party planning and have a good idea what kinds of foods will be in the classroom. 

omurray

Thank you!  This is good info.  We are really in the learning phase right now and appreciate any input we can get.  Good point on being the class room mom too.  I do know that food allergies are becomming more and more common, but want to make sure I don't just assume they'll be handled properly without finding out the policies.

oparcm

I'm an elementary school special education teacher and I have lunch duty every day.  I have a list of all the children (pics included) with a list of their allergies.  I also have a list of children with EPI's and carry the EPI's with me at all times during the lunch shift.  We have a peanut free table and surrounding vicinity.  We take allergies very seriously.  We also have some students who have religious reasons for not eating particular things and take them into account as well.  This is one of the reasons we don't rotate lunch duty.  The person that does that duty everyday knows those kids. 

MichelleWP

All schools in our district are nut free (and bag lunches are checked), I think that's more common than not, for nuts anyway.

littlemermaid

In our school all students with allergies are on a list for the lunchroom monitors.  If they have a prescribed EPI pen then they have to wear it on them at all times and an extra is carried by the grade's designated lunch monitor and then that one is given back to the child's teacher after recess.  The kids get to sit with their class but at the end of their row of tables.  Then one seat is left empty between them and the rest of the class.  All tables are washed(bleach & water) between lunch periods.  For the classroom the child has to have a shoe box that is filled with "safe" snacks and whenever they get a snack time or if someone brings in a birthday treat to share with the class the child with the allergy goes into their "safe snack box" and eats a snack out of their own box while the others eat the one handed out.  All parents are notified at the beginning of the year if their is a child with a particular food allergy in the classroom so parents do not send in snacks with that particular food.  All teachers and lunch monitors have to take a training class every year offered by the school in how to use an EPI pen and administer CPR.