These are just HOT! Forget the press! My new favorite people right now are the brilliant folks at the National School Boards Association (NSBA), if they lived in Reno, I’d invite them over for tea, soy milk and vegan cupcakes! I saw on Facebook last night a positive comment about the National School Boards Association Food Allergy Policy Guidelines, entitled, National School Boards Association Food Allergy Guidelines (PDF) being released. You simply must read these and share with your school. These guidelines are AMAZING! I am serious here, I am jumping for joy excited for three reasons here:
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- The beautifully written article, “NSBA releases new policy guide for food allergies” from School Board News Today-the online publication of the National School Boards Association.
- The Food Allergy Policy Checklist.
- These guidelines are in response to the Food Safety Modernization Act that included our Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act (FAAMA), which focuses on managing food allergies in schools.
First, the article mentioned the incredibly sad and incredibly preventable recent school food allergy death of 7-year-old student Ammaria Johnson in Chesterfield, VA and discussed the “importance of addressing food allergies in school aged children”. They quoted Anne L. Bryant, NSBA’s executive director saying ”As school boards strive to improve the academic success of students, they cannot lose sight of the health challenges some students face and the need to prevent and effectively respond to health emergencies in school.” That quote: they cannot lose sight struck me like a brick! Sometimes I feel that we all can so easily lose sight of our purpose and mission with the hundreds of distractions that are tossed at us daily. Ms. Bryant is right…we can’t lose sight, even as budget cuts make us cry, we must still keep health issues a priority.
Second, the guidelines include an invaluable Food Allergy Policy Checklist that I think every school board, school principal, and school nurse should review. Period. The purpose of these checklists are to help schools determine what areas need attention and which areas need improvement. The checklists review a series of elements related to food allergy policy and ask the user if an element is included in their policy or not. If it is included in the food allergy policy then it asks if it is implemented or not. Simple but precise!
The checklists are based on policy components, such as…
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- identifying students with life threatening food allergies
- Individual written management plans
- School environment
- Communication and confidentiality
- Emergency response
- Professional developement and training for school personnel
- Awareness education for students
- Awareness education for parents/caregivers
- Monitoring and evaluating
Thank you FAAN for always being there for us!!!
I added the link to the PDF of these guidelines to my resource page created just for teachers, administrators and school nurses! This page is full of all sorts of great hand-outs, studies, position statements, video links…you name it to help schools with food allergy and/or asthma education and management.
Although our hearts are heavy with the untimely loss of Ammaria, these new guidelines and efforts give hope that we heading in the right direction.
One of the hardest things I find about managing both life threatening food allergies and asthma is talking to others. I hate to be the one that might be perceived as demanding, pushing or for asking too much. What I now know, fourteen years later, is that honest, clear information presented with kindness works!..
Hi Caroline,
This is my first time seeing and reading your post. Thank you for providing a great blog and up to the minute news regarding schools and food allergies. I was glad to see the “wiggles” video which we will probably use to lessen my daughter’s fear on self administering an EpiPen
My concern with school policies and practices is that it always seems that it is left up to the school to choose how they implement a policy. For example, while we were in our district, their were 5 elementary schools, each handling their food allergy policy differently based on the prinicipal and nurse’s leadership. Our middle school handles it quite differently again, so what can we do as parents to see that our superintendent implements a new policy in a uniform manner? We find this same story from friends across the country with one school in district managing food allergies proactively while another “turns their cheek”. Any suggestions?
Hi Dana, Thanks for commenting. I think the new NSBA guidelines are hopefully one possible solution. That was the point of the FAAMA, is to help make management guidelines similar. My son and I advocated in DC regarding FAAMA and that was my main talking-we need to come up with a national plan that could then be tweaked via 504 the individual child, but standards are key for teachers and staff to keep kids safe. It is my belief that each state should adopt their own policies based on their environment. I really hope district grab this policy and run. Have a great day!!
Caroline – Thanks so much for featuring the National School Boards Association publication! It is so important to help school leaders establish policies and practices that support the safety, well-being, and academic success of students with life-threatening food allergies. If you are ever in DC area, we could meet for ” tea, soy milk and vegan cupcakes”!
Hi Alexis, I will take you up on the tea offer if I am in town! I am just over the top thrilled with this document. Truly, lives will be saved!