By air borne...he at this point would not react to cheese sitting next to him, but a child eating cheetos or something with powdered cheese near by. Especially if that child wipes their hands on their shirt or something it would send the cheese into the air. Also he reacts when diary is cooking so we are unsure how he is going to do in any of the rooms near the cafe. There isn't a sink in the classroom. I don't know if he is near the bathrooms so I don't know if it is practical to have all the kids wash up after snack. That's one thing I need to check on Friday when we meet. Regardless though, his contact dairy allergy is so severe that contact to trace levels effects his breathing up to 3 days, so certain foods just can't be allowed into the classroom.
I'm really not being unrealistic here, it's about what my son requires medically. If the school can't accomadate him, than they are required to find some way to provide a free education some other way. Many of the schools in my town are completely peanut free. There goes the staple of peanutbutter and jelly we all grew up on, but it has been ruled medically necessary for a number of students so that's what they did and the others just have to be ok with eating peanutbutter at home. Dairy is certainly different and most parents don't realize that dairy is in a ton of things. I was planning on typing up a list of diary free snack foods and if need be I'll even provide a box of fruit leathers or pretzels so if a student brought in a snack with dairy, they won't go without. Many classes I substituted for used to have the same snack for the class,
so that can be a solution to. But, in my expereince substituting and student teaching, snacks usually lingrued. Some kids took forever and then would put a half eaten snack back in their desk and continue with it later. For 2nd grade (the grade my son is going into) teachers usually used snack as a way to managed a students' free time. Meaning rather than saying "at 10 we will have our snack." and then cleaning up and going on to the next task. They usually say, "as soon as your done with your math you can take out your snack. After your snack you can get a book or magazine from the class library. At 10:25 we will leave for art." So you have some kids doing their math, some on snack, some walking around, some reading. That would only work with Elijah if everyone had a dairy free snack. I'll have to find out how his teacher usually does it, but how I've seen it, the
younger grades are on a very clear time schedule and 2nd and up are more independent.
How do you work out the kids eating in the classroom with your son? Does their lunch need to be allergen free in any way? Does he have any contact allergies? Does the teacher stay there or a para? And about the art supplies...I know there can be gluten, corn, and soy in art supplies. My son's allergic to all of them too but only if ingested. But have you come across any with dairy in them? I have not but I do know that they do projects with milk cartons, which of course would be out of the question.
Thanks.
--- On Mon, 6/8/09, christel <christelking1@...> wrote:
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