We all know that nut allergies are on the rise, and I feel truly sorry for children who have to learn at a very young age that food is not all pleasure. Certain foods can make you very sick or even kill you. I saw my friend's daughter grow up with allergies that often landed her in the hospital. She quickly learned to live with it and look out for her own welfare because she had to. While people in whose care she was entrusted knew of her food allergies, ultimately the responsibility for keeping her safe rested with her parents and eventually with her.
It appears that things have changed. Not only do we need an entire "village to raise a child," we expect the entire community to change the way it functions to protect the child. In this particular case, the danger is nuts, and the medium for this message is the front page of the June 17, 2012, Sunday Eagle Tribune (Lawrence MA) in a story entitled "Parents: Schools Aren't Protecting Allergic Son from Nuts." In short, a nine year-old fourth grader has found himself hospitalized seven times due to a severe reactions to nuts, which his parents say he was exposed to in school.
The parents stated that the school has complied with the provisions of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for those with disabilities. Among those disabilities are food allergies, and the parents were told that their child's classroom would be "nut-free." The parents claim that on two different instances teaches themselves brought in contaminated foods and that at one other time, a classmate brought in a nut-containing food and when the nut-allergic child brought the item to the teacher, the teacher allegedly told the child that he (the child) was not be act like the "nut police." While the parents may have a legitimate complaint about the three reported instances as they did occur in the classroom itself, the article states that the child had seven trips to the hospital and often the allergic reaction does not show up for twelve hours after exposure.
I believe schools need to keep children safe: from bullies, from predatory teachers, from sun-stroke on the athletic field, and (most importantly) poor education. I also believe that since there are Federal Disabilities Acts in place, schools need to abide by them. But here is a child who appears to be so allergic to nuts that nut residue on a person's clothing could set off a reaction, and that nut residue can be carried into the classroom unknowingly. I also must assume that this child is not confined to the classroom during every moment of the school day. He may come in contact with other teachers, students, and surfaces. How accountable can we hold a school community and how many people's lives do we disrupt because of one child? My understanding as a post-secondary educator is that "reasonable accommodations" are what is expected of a school or teacher in the event of a disability.
Teachers are only human, and with budget cuts in almost all communities, public school classrooms are busy places where the teacher's attention is fragmented by his/her need to meet the needs of each student under the "No Child Left Behind" statutes. Expecting a teacher to make sure that no child brings in a cookie with nuts (or processed in a facility that processes nuts) is a near impossibility. Kids break rules. If you tell a child, this is a nut-free zone, that child may either forget or disregard that rule. Most children have not seen a person in extreme respiratory distress. We shield our children from those realities - and maybe to their detriment - the the idea of someone being severely allergic to nuts is something most young children just don't get.
It appears from the article itself that the school system is doing the best it can to help this boy deal with his individual and particular health issue, but the responsibility is with the parents. Perhaps it is time for them to explore home-schooling or tutoring that will keep the child in his own protective atmosphere and where the parents can more closely monitor his exposure until such time as he can take more responsibility for monitoring his own. I'm sure that parents would have many reasons for why their child should be treated as a normal child in a normal social atmosphere. But, face it, this child, given this extreme allergy to nuts, will never be able to do that. There will always be accommodations that will need to be made for him as long as he is in a place where governmental laws apply. But he will not always be in that type of place.
This child will have difficulty going to ball games, participating in camping trips, scouting, lunches with friends, etc. His parents need to teach him how to keep himself as safe as possible, what do to when he is exposed and has a reaction, and how to advocate for himself in the future. Until then, he is their responsibility and not the school's. It is not "reasonable" to expect teachers, students, and administrators to police themselves each and every day and to feel totally responsible for this child's welfare.
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