Teachers Notice on Allergies

A couple years ago, right before my daughter was to start middle school in a brand new environment, I started feeling a bit panicked. How do I keep her safe when there will be so many more students and teachers to worry about?

The first thing I did was to have an open dialogue with the school nurse, my daughter's adviser, and her teachers. Medical forms had to be filled out and signed by the doctor and then sent to the school nurse. All medicine had to be ordered and labelled properly before dropping them off at school and 504 Action Plans needed to be created and signed by the parents and teachers.

Even with all the paperwork and all the details, I still felt there was something else I could do to help ensure the safety of my allergic daughter. That first year and every year since, I have sent her teachers a separate e-mail explaining her allergies and asking for their help. You see, on the first day of school, when they call on my daughter's name, I want them to look at her face and know that she is the one with severe food allergies. That way if they notice anything out of the ordinary, they will hopefully send her to the Nurse's office to be checked out. Another reason is that I know students often spend their lunch time getting extra help from teachers in their classroom. That means that they may have eaten their lunch (possibly a yummy peanut butter sandwich) on your child's desk. For some allergic kids, this could be a very sticky situation! For this reason, I kindly ask them if the teacher or the student could please wipe these desks right after lunch. This keeps the learning environment clean and allergy-safe. It's a win-win situation for all!

Here is a sample of the e-mail I sent out this year:

Hi! I usually send out an e-mail at the beginning of the school year to all my daughter's teachers. She is going to be in your class this year and I just wanted to let you know that she has severe food allergies to dairy, eggs, peanuts, all other nuts and sesame. 

My daughter is very good at managing her allergies so if you are going to have a party that involves food or any experiment or class activity that involves food, please let her know so she will be aware and can plan accordingly. Also, I know students frequently come to classrooms during their lunch to make up work. I little wipe of the desk would help us out greatly.

Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for all your help.

While this has worked out very well for us these past three Middle School years, I think our daughter will need to come up with a different plan during her High School years. So we will stick with our plan for the time being and next year will be a new year.