Placing a spotlight on allergy education

Throughout May, Lawrence School District students, faculty and personnel highlighted learning about different types of food allergies and what to do to help someone during an allergic emergency.

Participating in the Food Allergy Action Month is important for all schools, said Lawrence School District Superintendent Gary Schall. “It’s always a great learning experience for us, it is an opportunity to review what our policies are,” he said.

The death of former Lawrence student Giovanni Cipriano due to an allergic reaction last October prompted this year’s month-long awareness campaign, according to Pat Pizzarelli, the assistant superintendent for student and community affairs.

“Committee roundtables were created in the past when guidelines were needed to assist allergy sufferers,” he said. “We said, ‘Let’s look at our stuff again, do a big event splash.’

After awhile, people forget about allergies and what to do in an emergency situation. A reminder about things like allergy awareness is always beneficial, as allergies are here to stay.”

Allergy education was presented differently at all district schools, Pizzarelli said. “We gave bookmarks and pamphlets of information about allergies to the kids to take home,” he said. “The kids read books about characters suffering from allergies. At the high school, we had the nurses bring epinephrine pens (pens that inject adrenaline into an allergy sufferer to stop the reaction and help him or her breathe) to show the students how to use them. We showed a movie, “An Emerging Epidemic: Food Allergies In America.”

On the district website lawrence.org, there are four links to access more information about how its allergy situations are handled: Allergy Awareness Goals, Food Allergens, Allergy Action Plan, and the Individualized Health Care Plan.

Allergy Awareness Goals contains an explanation of what the district hopes to achieve each school year in maintaining a safe school environment for allergy sufferers. Food Allergens lists foods containing milk, egg and peanuts from the district’s school meal provider, Whitson’s.

Allergy Action Plan is a short form to include personalized information with steps to help with an allergy emergency. Individualized Health Care Plan is a form to record each time an allergy sufferer has an allergic reaction or emergency.

When Meg Doyle’s son began attending Lawrence school about eight years ago, there was not much discussion about allergy, but that has changed. “I like to think of our district’s allergy policy as being a living and breathing document, something perfect today, and with the ability to adjust to needs,” she said. “Our district has by far, gone over and above with allergy awareness.”
“Gary (Schall) makes sure the schools are all equipped with EpiPens,” Doyle added. “I really like the computerized system in the lunchroom where at checkout, the child’s picture comes up, identifying which kids have which food allergies.”

Pizzarelli said the district will continue developing its allergy awareness program. “We will continue working with our food services people,” he said. “With so many different allergies, there isn’t one meal just for allergy sufferers, so we are proposing creating allergy specific meals. We hope we can find a company to do this for us. Our committee is also considering giving out wipes for the kids to use after lunch.”

The awareness will continue throughout the rest of the school year and into the future “We want to include bus drivers in our training, as allergy emergencies can easily happen during rides to and from school,” Pizzarelli said. “We’re all one community and these kids are our kids. Let’s take care of them.”

To see the Lawrence School District plans for allergy awareness, visit: http://www.lawrence.org/?DivisionID=9249&ToggleSideNav=, and click on each link.