[Sca-cooks] OOP More schools ban Peanut Butter

[Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps]

THere was an incident at Margaret's school last year, the last few days 
before Chirstmas break, where the kids ate in the classroom instead of in 
the cafetria, and they were given peanut butter sadwiches, but Margaret had 
ham. Now, when you say "peanut butter sandwich", I picture a loaf of bread, 
a jar of peanut butter, and someone standing there with a knife making 
sandwiches. But no, the children were given these vile things called 
crustables, some kind of frozen crap that oozed peanut butter and jelly all 
over the desks, all over their hands, and, being 5 and 6 year old little 
kids, they smeared it all over their little hands, waved them at Margaret, 
and went "Peanut butter, ha ha". Margaret's kindergarten teacher was 
dismayed at this, and the mess it made, and I was dismayed at it too when 
she told me. If her allergy had been severe enough that this wouyld have 
caused a reaction, I would have been furious. I never did find out why they 
needed to shut the cafeteria down for three days. This was the only problem 
I encountered in the school, otherwise they were very cooperative about 
accomodating the problem. We're pretty lucky, I guess.
Isabella
who gets to go through it all over again at the new school this year...

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
Frank Zappa

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like 
administering medicine to the dead.
Thomas Paine
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lady Celia" <CeliadesArchier at cox.net>
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 12:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] OOP More schools ban Peanut Butter


> Nichola said:
> <<I just want to comment on this coming from the schools side....
> ...
> We have to take 100% responsibility for these kids while they are in our
> care.
> ...
>    In a nut free school, teacher has a Hershey bar, (Check the label it
> is there), touches kid with allergy that doesn't have smart parents that
> said anything.... KID DIES....  Do you want to stand in those shoes when
> it comes time to make that phone call?>>
>
> See, that kind of thing is the thing I think that folks miss. I know *I*
> didn't consider it until I read the article, and then having done so, it
> *completely* freaked me out, because I have been the care giver for 
> toddlers
> myself, and there is absolutely *no way*, that if one of them has 
> something
> like a peanut butter sandwich, that you can guarantee that every child in
> that group isn't going to also be "exposed" to that peanut butter.
>
> Anyone who has seen a 6 year old eat a PB&J sandwich *knows* that the 
> peanut
> butter *is* (not might, *will*)end up on everything within reach of that
> child.  The table, the chairs, that kid's pants, the kids next to them, 
> etc.
> Unless you're going to isolate the kid with the PB&J and then sterilize 
> them
> and the entire room that they ate it in, you can't guarantee that another
> kid won't end up with PB on their hands or that "cross contamination" 
> won't
> occur.  All you had to do was to point that out to me for me to fully
> understand why it actually *was* a problem.  I expect that other people
> simply don't realize this or can't see it.
>
> On the other hand, I have a brother who, as a child, was deathly allergic 
> to
> strawberries. Not to the extend that they sent him into anaphylactic 
> shock,
> but they sent him into such severe asthma attacks that he had to be
> hospitalized. To this day I recall the angriest I've ever seen my mother
> being the day that she got a note that he had been paddled at school 
> because
> he had refused to eat red jello, something that he was forbidden to eat
> because it *might* be strawberry and contain "natural flavors". Luckily my
> brother feared my mother more than the school administration, because he
> wouldn't budge when they didn't believe him that he wasn't allowed to eat
> the jello and thought it was just that he didn't want to.  And luckily
> things have changed a lot since the days when they fed all the children 
> the
> same thing and told them they had to clean their plate. But the fact that
> the school still needs to be informed and has to do everything in their
> power to protect that child still pertains.
>
> Celia.
>
>
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