As more children in the United States are being diagnosed with food allergies, school districts are developing policies to better monitor a student’s dietary restrictions and learning from experience along the way.
Northwest Indiana schools have instituted strategies, such as providing allergy tables in the cafeteria, making detailed nutrition information available online for parents, and even hiring outside vendors to make and wrap problem foods like peanut butter sandwiches.
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By federal law, schools are required to accommodate documented disabilities, but how a district handles those without a disability — for example, lactose intolerance or overweight students — can differ.
Between 4 percent and 6 percent of kids have a food allergy, according to the Centers for Disease Control, with milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat accounting for more than 90 percent of allergic reactions.
Allergic reactions can range from tingling sensations around the mouth and lips, to hives, difficulty breathing and even death.
If a child has an allergy or other food restriction, most districts require parents to get a form detailing what needs to be done and get it signed by a doctor. The form is submitted to the school nurse, who then shares it with the food service department.
School City of Hammond Food Services Director Julie Boettger said some allergies, such as milk, require a bit more detail from medical providers.
“Milk allergy. If a doctor writes that on a prescription pad, it doesn’t mean much,” Boettger said. “Is it a true allergy or lactose intolerance? It needs to specify whether it is just milk or all dairy products. Without that we don’t have precisely what we need to prevent something that could cause death.”
Hammond has about 600 students with a dietary restriction, which is a decrease from a few years ago when 1,000 students, or 10 percent of the district, required a special diet.
Boettger said the decrease has a lot to do with better strategies for tracking what a child eats. She said the district has tried to learn from situations where a student’s information isn’t accurate.
“For instance, one year we had a child going on a field trip,” Boettger said. “The child was allergic to peanuts, so we prepared a cheese sandwich. Someone got distracted and somehow the kid ended up with a peanut butter sandwich, which set off a chain of events that got everyone upset. Then, in talking with the parent, we found out that the kids was not allergic to peanuts but tree nuts.
“It was good that nothing serious occurred, but we’ve tried to tighten our processes.”
Many food service departments have linked a student’s dietary restrictions with the code they type in when the get to the end of the lunch line. Kathleen Kane, Food and Nutrition Director at Valparaiso Community Schools, said the information is input into the district’s point-of-sale system.
“When a student comes through the line, they put a code in and the allergy comes up,” Kane said. “The cashier looks at the tray, which is difficult to monitor, but they try to use it to their best advantage.”
About 100 kids at Valparaiso have dietary prescription forms on file, and Kane said the number has been going up.
Kane said the district tries to assist parents by having a legend on its weekly menus that points out foods that contain nuts, pork or are meatless, and every nutritional information for each menu item is available on the district’s website.
And several districts, including Valparaiso and Hammond, have pre-wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches prepared off site to avoid any cross-contamination.
In Crown Point, Food Service Director Pam Maloney said the district has allergy tables set up in cafeterias, but many students choose not to use them.
“It really depends on their preferences,” Maloney said.
Maloney said there has been an uptick in the number of children with dietary restrictions, but that’s also coincided with an increase in the number of students who eat the school lunch.
For food service directors and schools nurses, it’s a chance to improve their policies in order to keep kids safer.
“It’s been a hot issue because it seems like something goes wrong each year,” Boettger said. “But it makes us all a little more aware.”