Here’s a local update on this topic:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/content_syndication/local_news/6735468.htm
In a ‘nutshell’, when educated on the issues, parents tend to cooperate.
I’m finding great irony that this discussion is taking place in Walnut Creek.
Robin
My kid is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. She is 3. And she just started nursery school, which has been kinda scary. It’s a co-op, and I’m there half the time, while my friend is there the other half to watch out for her. I’ve told the other parents, and they’re great about it so far. But it’s very easy to forget or get careless.
Of course I’m teaching her to take responsiblity. But she’s 3, and has yet to remember to tell people that she can’t take food without my permission. She has a bracelet, and I have a purse that goes everywhere she does, with Benadryl and and an Epi-Pen. The same is at school for when I’m not there, and the teacher knows how to use it.
Now, luckily, she has never gone into anaphylaxis, and we’ve never needed the Epi-Pen. Currently she vomits everything up instead, and screams a lot because it hurts her mouth as soon as it goes in. It’s happened a couple of times, plus one or two smaller incidents with hazelnuts that only involved retching and screaming.
But she is simply not old enough to take care of it herself, and I doubt that a 5-year old is either, especially when you realize how many foods are processed with nuts, how easy it is to smear peanut butter around, and so on. Little kids wind up sharing everything (I know; I once worked in a 1st-grade classroom shudder), and teachers would have to take some care with a severely allergic child, same as they would with a disability or other special circumstance. By 7 or 8, they’re old enough to be careful, but before that–I doubt it very much.
“Enforced homeschooling?” And here I thought every child in this country was entitled to a public education (not to mention that homeschoolers are supposed to be oppressed and undersocialized). There are a lot of allergic kids in the world, and the number is growing. We’re going to have to learn to accommodate to it, and thankfully, that is happening now, with better food labeling and so on. (As it happens, our family considering homeschooling our kids. Our daughter’s allergies are not the reason why, but it does add an extra incentive.)
If the child in the OP is allergic enough that touching peanut residue can trigger anaphylaxis, I think it’s reasonable to ask other families to keep their peanut butter at home in K and 1st grade. I have yet to meet a kid who can only eat nuts, or starve. Obviously the parents cannot relax because of that, and I doubt that they will (speaking as a parent who takes medication even to the library). The school doesn’t seem to have started off on a good footing, but it also looks like things are going better. Parents in a class can cooperate to keep all the kids as healthy and safe as possible.
It’s not the deprivation of the kids, it’s the loss of the instructional aide so that the school could hire the nurse just to monitor the classroom to protect this one child. That’s where I have a problem, one kid’s needs for extraordinary assistance should not trump the rest of the kids ability to have the full compendium of adults on the scene to assist them in getting an education – the purpose for them being in the school to begin with.
And genie, I’m not advocating “enforced homeschooling.” I’m suggesting that parents of children who have issues significant enough to require that the school district hire special personnel just to serve their child, whose hiring necessitates the firing (or prevents the hiring) of someone who would serve all the children, should think very long and hard about whether or not their insistence upon placing their child in a public school under such circumstances is fair. It strikes me as considerably selfish and misguided, especially when coupled with consideration that sending the kid to school – even with that special nurse – puts the kid’s life at a much greater risk than he would face if he were schooled at home.
I’m not unsympathetic to the family dealing with a kid with severe allergies, I’m sure it’s hell. I just don’t see unleashing a portion of that hell onto a classroom of kindergarteners and taking away their classroom aide in the bargain. There comes a point at which taking that to which you are “entitled” to is not the right thing to do. I think that a case comes awfully close to that point.
**
Of course every child is entitled to a free public education, but in the OP’s case, the parents are risking his life sending him into the school. There is no way of guaranteeing that the child will be safe. People will get careless as time goes on, and something terrible may happen. In this case, the only way to keep the child safe until he is old enough to fend for himself is to keep him at home.
The child will not necessarily be maladjusted from being home schooled for a few years, especailly if efforts are made to socialize the child in non-food related activites, such as swimming and playing in the park.
In fact, for this particular child, home schooling until he can police his own health may be beneficial. The other children won’t be as likely to think of him as a “freak” if his health restrictions are not rubbed in their faces by banning their favorite foods.
I still feel that it is the parent of the allergic child to ensure that the kid is kept in a safe environment. They can not expect other parents to meet the burden of their child’s care as willingly as they do, nor can they expect the same dedication to ensuring that their children’s lunches are peanut-free, especially since it so limits choice. (A good deal of foods contain peanut oil, to the extent that one must put some effort into finding those without.) An accident is bound to happen.
Maybe because people like you pushed peanuts in their faces saying “hey it’s just in your head, you’ll be fine…why are you lying down like that?”
A friend of mine has an uncle who went into shock because some idiot decided she would show him it was all in his head and served him a dish with peanuts (without his knowledge). He had his epinephrine with him, so he survived. Had it been me, I would have hauled her into court for attempted murder.
And I suppose you wouldn’t object if I followed your daughter around at lunch time with a loaded gun pointed at her head right? Because that’s what you’re threatening to do to my daughter. It’s not just insensitive, it’s psychotic. Previously I simply disagreed with pretty much everything you said, but felt you were pretty harmless. Your words above can only be interpreted as written by someone who is a danger to society.
Hey Shalmanese and Badtz, are you for offing the nearsighted and otherwise infirm? How about those who don’t have blue eyes and blonde hair?
Please, be honest–tell us your Final Solution.
Natural selection continues. We’re simply selecting for different traits than previously.
Its true . I once saw a flock of peanuts fly right past my head. I,of course, just assumed somebody threw them at me for wearing a seahawk jersey in Philly, but now I’m not so sure …
This reminds me of this old GQ thread of mine asking if this had ever actually happened before, up to the point of a criminal trial (the only trail mentioned in any reply, from a column by Cecil, was for child abuse, which is a far cry from murder or attempted murder). Anyone got any new info on this? I really am curious.
Addendum for the lawyers: if someone DID try to bring such an allergy challenger to trial, what’s the severest charge (s)he could be brought up on?
Sorry fer the hijack. 
Oh, and Diogenes? i’ve reserved some of my choicer comments for another forum.
The main reason I have a problem with this situation is that the attempts to accommodate this one child’s needs has lead to the school being less able to accommodate other children’s needs. The slow learners in the class, the kids who’ll wind up in special ed and tutoring programs in the years to come, they need that aide. Their need, IMO, is every bit as valid as this allergy kid’s need. Why should the needs of the many go unmet because of the needs of one?
I can’t speak for them, but perhaps you should clear up this little analogy.
Does everyone else have to go out of their way to provide for nearsighted people? Is this a hypothetical world where, for example, small writing is banned because nearsighted people might not be able to read it from far away?
Or, as in our world, are these nearsighted people responsible for and capable of compensating for their own handicaps?
Paging Mr. Godwin. Mr. Godwin, you have a telephone call at the front desk.
The big problem with issues like this is that we have to think about them - it would be really nice if we could just dredge up some closely analogous situation and use it as a precedent, but as far as I can tell there is no such similar situation, could we perhaps return to the bare facts again:
[list][li]Nut allergies exist and are serious for those affected.[/li]
[li]Accidental exposure to nut traces can occur; this is particularly likely where the individuals handling the materials are children.[/li]
[li]Many people like to eat nuts and nut products.[/li][sub](I’m in ther UK, where culture and diet is different - peanut product consumption is nowhere near as high and conscious perception of ‘rights’ is less emphasised[/sub]
[li](As far as I know) Nuts are not an absolutely essential component of anyone’s diet.[/li]
I’m sure this isn’t a complete list (perhaps someone else would like to add to it), but going solely on the above, how about it being compared to a child bringing a toy such as a yoyo to school? (I think my child’s school has a ban on these too) - it isn’t an essential thing, it can be used safely and yet there is a risk of accidental injury to persons other than the child using it.
A yo-yo is an easily identified thing–there are not “traces” of yo-yo found in unexpected places that could cause harm to someone. One cannot accidentally get “yo-yo” on someone else without knowing it. One can not unknowingly bring some “yo-yo” with them, all the while being completely unaware of it. But all these things are possible with nuts. Peanut oil being a small ingredient in a food. Peanut fumes, peanut smeared on someone’s shirt. Trace amounts of peanut that no one else notices, and so forth…
You’re right–it’s really hard to find a suitable analogy for this.
I do share the concern over small kids, and I think that if they must attend public school, well, obviously they need to be protected.
But I’m beginning to think that the safest place for a kid who is that sensitive is at home. And if it’s true–if the allergy tends to be less severe if the kid is not exposed to it very much, then that’s all the more reason to keep the kid away from school, where the risk of exposure–no matter how careful everyone is–is so much greater.
Comments made by Shalmanese and Badtz come from ignorant little twits who have no experience with life threatening disabilities/illness. Leaving people to the wolves would work if we were living in the wilderness, but here in SOCIETY we have certain morale and civic duties to protect our fellow man if it’s reasonable to do so (more and that in a second). The person that had the peanut allergies that you think should be left to die could very well be involved in the cure for the illness in the future or somehow indirectly/directly be responsible for the betterment of mankind. It’s not a hard concept to grasp. Here’s my idea: Lets round up every cold hearted, ignorant, snotty bastard like Shalmanese and Badtz, who are obviously a detriment to society, and blast them out into space. Now THAT’S what I’d call evolution in action. Sorry, but I have a serious physical disability, so when someone starts running their ignorant mouth about Nazi-like evolution practices I take it VERY personally, since you’re effectively saying you think I should be dead.
People, you’re comparing peanut butter to a person’s LIFE. Just think about that for a moment. Not having peanuts for lunch for a few years while the kid develops a reliable sense of responsibility is NOT a major inconvenience. It’s just a type of food for the love of God. If the kid was allergic to all food so they had to ban everything making everyone starve is different - you get the idea. Right?
::shakes head, mumbles to self and wanders off to bed::
**
Or that same person could go on to be a mass murdering cannibal, the dictator who starts a nuclear war, or another insurance salesman.
**
I have no objections to making accomodations for those with disabilities. Those accomodations shouldn’t serve to upset the normal course of life for everyone else though. If he’s that allergic to peanuts then he needs to find a solution that isn’t going to take something from everyone else.
Marc
It’s simply not as easy as banning peanut butter sandwiches, and I’m getting annoyed at those of you who imply it *is[/]. For this “simple” food ban to be effective, every parent of every student and the school that provides lunches to those who need them would have to make sure that peanuts and peanut oil are not in any foods that are brought to school. I challange those of you who think it’s easy (excluding those of you who have a child with this condition and have already done so) to go through all the food items, including cooking oils, and see how “simple” this task can be.
So what happens if this kid has a reaction because another child unknowingly brought a lunch with peanuts in the ingredients?
Marc
If the school has to hire a specilist just t watch this one kid, then perhaps he needs to be in a special needs school. The level of danger they are acting at implies this kid is in immense danger every minute he’s in school.
He has a right to an education, according to the law, but not to an education anywhere his mom pleases.
A rational cost/benefit analysis would indicate that banning peanuts in all schools is silly. It would also indicate that banning peanuts in a class with an allergic kid makes sense.