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 ...
what a load, LOL. I don't mind your extraneous facts and empathies, but without outrightly doing so, you put a lot of words into my mouth.
The single abberance in this entire story is the kids allergy to Peanut butter, period. Banning normal kids from eating their lunch with their normal friends who might not have peanut butter on any given day is preposterous.
The kid with the allergy warrants a peanut-butter-free table. But peanut butter eating normal kids are being wrongfully discriminated against because of someone elses problem. Its just plain wrong!
I would home school the kid, because simply moving the evil peanut butter eaters to the peanut gallery is not going to prevent them from potentially breathing on the kid later in the day.
Perhaps people with these bizarre allergies all died off as babies or infants in prior generations, but now that medicine has gotten better they live and expect the whole world to drop everything to accomodate them.
Your friend Steve sounds much like a friend of mine, who because of a birth defect is practically a quadrapalegic and confined to a wheel chair. She has enough use of her hands to be able to operate her wheel chair and feed herself, but not much more than that.
My 6 year old daughter has no problems with talking to people in wheel chairs because of this gal. They became great friends when my daughter was about 2 and Marie would let her crawl into her lap and would take her around the block on her motorized wheel chair.
Children exposed to others who are different at a young age seem to be less likely to be "bullies" and pick on those who are different when they get older.
Very classy response eccentric. Thank you.
If I were the person being charged with protecting that child in school, I might go a little overboard too. I'd want to protect myself from a lawsuit, of course, but also the thought of a kid coming to serious harm while in my care is terrible. I'd want to do whatever I could, even if the parents didn't ask.
If you brought peanuts, or peanut butter in, you just had to make sure you washed your hands really well after eating so as to leave no peanut residue anywhere. Simple.
It is ridiculous to segregate the peanut/peanut butter eaters...but we simply cannot segregate the one child..what about her self esteem?
Why can't they just move the kids with the allergies? As an aside, a peanut allegy would suck.
2 members of my family have the same allergy by the way.
because it is easier to inconvenience others.
Remember we got kicked out of bars and restaurants and practically anywhere else because of the infintessimal number of people with allergies to cigarette smoke.........and the even smaller probability of someone getting sick from it.
I had a friend who is allergic to milk proteins. I don't mean like lactose-intolerant...I mean just like this kid. No milk, no cheese, no ice cream, no butter. Ever. THAT would suck majorly.
Bingo!
If this were my child, I would remove him from the potentially deadly environment. I would not trust that 500 students would be aware of the ingredients in a Little Debbie snack cake.
"Perhaps people with these bizarre allergies all died off as babies or infants in prior generations..."
There's nothing bizarre at all about food allergies. They've been around for centuries, although it does appear they are more common now. In the case of my situation (celiac sprue), I probably indeed would have died not too many years ago. Heck, I almost died three years ago.
"but now that medicine has gotten better they live and expect the whole world to drop everything to accomodate them."
Maybe some adults are that way but I don't think younger kids expect anything more than to be able to do "normal" stuff as much as possible.
I guess it would be more convenient for people without these problems if the ones with the problems just started dying again.
Sorry, T-c, you need to get a grip. This kid should consider herself lucky. At my wife's school, the ENTIRE SCHOOL is "nut-free" because one kid, who left there two or three years ago, was highly peanut-allergic. The school also has a "no classroom pet" policy because one kid (who happened the director at the time's son) was somewhat allergic to the Cavy (Guinea Pig) in his room. And yes, neither of THEM are at the school anymore.
Then again, we live in the EssEff area where PC overreaction is the norm...
I think (other than home-schooling), segregating the child with the allergy is the ONLY option. What if he/she sits down with children who (unbeknown to them) have food that has a peanut substance in it? What then? Where is this going to end? I am SO GLAD my daughter is grown!!
The conspiracy against reasonable people is so obvious.
After all, are peanuts not grown in red states? HMMMMMM!
Precisely ... if the folks in the article think they're suffering, they should think of the poor kids in *really* nutty schools :-).
"So I take that the world did not have to be turned upside down to suit the fact that you are allergic to everything from crackers to pizza?"
I wish it were just an allergy instead of an autoimmune disease. Do your family members have an allergy to wheat or do they have celiac?
At schools where kids who have this attend, things do get turned at least somewhat upside down. Teachers have to find projects that don't include making things out of pasta or bread. They have to find a GF play dough. They have to become more mindful of snacks and crumbs. They have to allow children with celiac to go to the bathroom any time and at a moment's notice. And they have to find a way for the child to eat at table where bread and pizza isn't flying all over the place. Some schools isolate the student at table alone and others allow only students without gluten to eat at this table. Some schools provide a microwave just for the student
and others allow the student to use the cafeteria refrigerator (students with celiac must ALWAYS bring their own food).
I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 40s so I didn't have the school problem. But my house has been turned upside down and so has my social life with friends. Even my work life has been affected. It sucks sometimes but I take care of myself. I have friends and co-workers who go out of their way, but I certainly don't expect it.
Good comment. I think the kids would learn a LOT more if they were told that "you need to wash your hands carefully before you can play with Johnnie" due to the peanut dust, then to be told "you can't have Peanut Butter because of Johnnie". Guess where the resentment gets directed???
I guess it would be more convenient for people without these problems if the ones with the problems just started dying again.
You HAD to blow a well-reasoned comment with crap like this, didn't you?
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