Posted on 01/04/2005 7:54:07 AM PST by TheBigB
YORKTOWN, Ind. — Savannah Dowling is a typical 8-year-old girl; much of her protein comes from peanut butter sandwiches.
However, if she wants to bring one to Central Indiana's Pleasant View Elementary School, she has to eat it at a special table in the cafeteria to accommodate one first grader with a severe allergy. Soon she'll have to take her lunch to an area the school is calling the "peanut gallery" so the one child with the peanut allergy isn't affected.
"I don't think everybody should have to suffer because of one kid," said Mike Raper, a critic of the idea and fiancé of Savannah's mother. "I think it's a terrible precedent. Basically, because there's nowhere to draw the line. You've got people allergic to milk, wheat. My own son's diabetic. There's just no where to draw that line."
School Superintendent Mary Ann Irwin called it "one of the most challenging" accommodations the school has made for its students.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I'd send peanut butter with my kid everyday even if he was on Free lunches --- just to enlarge the peanut gallery.
It turns out my oldest grandson is allergic to PB, and a lot of other things. Thankfully, the allergies are not severe. He has had 2 PB sandwiches for lunch for about 10 years - long before he knew he was allergic to it. (still no problems with it - his doctor says that happens sometimes)
I'm pretty much in agreement with that. My point (valid to me, at least) was that he made HIS point with language that was beyond what the situation warrants, and indicative of a victim mentality.
I guess I was a little LOUD ... I feel calmer now that I've had a peanut-butter sandwich and some vegetable soup with garlic :-).
Nothing tough about it.
The PBJ table is always going to have more than one kid sitting there.
The kid with the allergy either has to eat alone everyday, or risk death.
The PBJ table seems like a pretty good compromise. Anyone not in agreement can watch a kid go into anaphalactic shock from a reaction to either peanuts or almonds. Nobody should have to go through that.
The kid I saw got three autoinjectors of epinepherine to the thigh before he came out of it. Took him two full days to recover. The boy put his hand in an empty bag of peanuts that was lying in the playground. The oil was enough to trip him offline.
You're right. The issue here isn't the safety of the child. Would loving parents really put their child's life at risk like that? The issue here is parents demanding everyone else take care of their kid because they are too lazy to.
I agree with you over the use of the word "suffer". Americans, as a whole, don't even know the meaning of it. The tragedy and ensuing crisis in Asia should motivate us to put things into perspective, however; we can't lose sight of what is happening here either and allow the left to further their agenda.
Bad breath anyone? What if he smells another student's breath after lunch? Is everyone from the peanut gallery required to brush their teeth after eating? Wash their hands and any 'contaminated' clothing?
The parents (of the general school population) certainly deserve some credit for making an effort at a rational solution to this issue ... but as I said above, the Left won the war when they persuaded the majority of parents to turn in their kids for 13 years of taxpayer-funded warehousing.
An unfit child should not be allowed in society. The risks of a lawsuit from an irate,irrational mother are too great.
Any little thing could set her off with resulting harm to inncoents.
A child with peanut allergy should kept at home.
Yes, let's go out of our way to send peanut butter to a school with an allergic child. We can't let those genetic mutants push us around! :::eyeroll:::
There is an allergic child in my son's class. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that the school has asked that the kids in that class not eat peanut butter at lunch.
Some people are so busy defending their "rights" that they can no longer bother with simple courtesy.
He doesn't have to eat alone. Other children with carefully monitored food could eat with him.
...pack a lunch without peanut butter so not to populate the peanut gallery.
Unlike sandwiches with meats and other spreads, peanut butter doesn't spoil. How many kids get sick from spoiled mayonaise?
plus PB is a lot cheaper then sandwhich meat and lunchables. Although if the libs find out that PB plus sedentry little kids who do nothing other then watch tv and play video games turn into fat little sedentry kids who do nothing other then watch tv and play video games, There would be a movement to ban PB on the grounds that it's dangerous and it causes obsisity in children.
Typso ping - Happy New Year. Resolve to avoid obsisity!
OK dumb question: Do her parents love her? If so, why is she in public school where death lurks everywhere? Dear Lord, my child's life is worth more than an free education. There is no way she would go to public school.
Not if your a bleeding-heart liberal. The rest of the world is supposed to revolve around and sacrifice to the singular exception.
Then you should quarantine the allergic child not the rest of the school population. I agree with an earlier poster, somewhere along the line this child is going to enter the real world where not everyone is aware of his allergy, nor taking steps to protect him. I can understand the parents concern for the health of their child, but you can't expect the whole world to quarantine itself for this childs safety. The school should designate one or two tables in the cafeteria peanut free tables and this child and his friends can sit there.
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