School Allergy: Fill & Download for Free

Because my little brother has a food allergy that could kill him if he gets into contact with the food.We’re not asking schools to move the sun for him, we just like that they at least try to make some parts of the school allergy-free so he won’t go into anaphylactic shock.

As a former kindergarten teacher, and as a teacher of over 40 years, I would say no. If there are some kind of important health concerns (taking insulin shots at school; allergies that require an EpiPen at school—both things we’ve had at our school), these issues should be dealt with in person before class starts.If your child has idiosyncrasies in his personality, I would just let him go to school, and talk casually with your child at the end of each day, with questions like, “How was your day? Did you do anything fun? Have you made any special friends? What was your favorite thing today?” See how he reacts to school. If there is any problem, give it a week, and then go in to see the teacher, meet her, ask how he’s adjusting, see what she thinks, before you tell her what you may be concerned about. If there is no problem, but you just want to meet the teacher and get to know her, give it about three weeks, by which time she’ll have had time to learn all the students’ names, and know a little bit about their personalities, and if there is anything which would be helpful to discuss.Here is why I say don’t write a letter. When I was a new teacher, I’d always read what the previous teachers had to say. After a couple years I quit doing that. First, I usually found my assessments quite similar to what other teachers had to say. But as I gained more confidence through years of teaching, I mostly didn’t want to know what other teachers said before I got to know the child. The reason was that some teachers might make a negative judgement, or not have bonded with the child as well as I might, and I want my children to always have the best chance of success in my class. So I try to have NO PRECONCEIVED IDEAS. Also, children react differently with different teachers, and they also react differently at school than they do at home (sometimes). By writing a letter about your child’s idiosyncrasies right at the beginning of school, you risk putting a negative impression in the new teacher’s mind, which may color the way she treats your child for the whole year. I’d let them try to get on for 1–3 weeks, then go in and meet her, and ask, “How are things going with my child? I just wanted both to meet you as his teacher, and to see if he is doing all right. Is there anything I can do at home to support his school success?” If the teacher brings up any problem areas, then that would be the time to discuss these idiosyncrasies.I can see you care about your child’s success, and I hope this helps. Best of luck.

Not me, but my daughter. This still makes my blood boil even talking about it.I enrolled my daughter in a supposedly wonderful, yet very expensive, pre-school. The teachers were all pretty good that I had heard but my daughter’s this year was not so.Kate brought a gluten-free snack to pre-school every day; she has a severe allergy to it (yes, she has celiac…I wish so much that she didn’t have it). Anyway, she gets hives all over and stops breathing if she consumes any gluten so that’s why I make sure and re-iterate to any daycare/pre-school that she cannot have any gluten.I dropped Kate off at her 2-year-old class and mention to the teacher that she has a snack in her backpack. Said teacher, I’ll call her Ms. Garrison, seemingly dismissed me.“Mhmm, yeah,” she replied.“She can’t have any of the snacks here; she has an epipen,” I didn’t want to be the nagging parent, but Ms. Garrison didn’t seem to care. I waved goodbye and hoped for the best.I come to pick her up and check in her backpack and see that her snack is still there. I ask Ms. Garrison what she had for snack and this woman answers,“Oh, I just gave her the graham crackers. She’s fine. I know parents like you who over react to this. Let the kid enjoy a snack.”At this point, I was freaking out. I grabbed Kate and got right to the nearest hospital. She was complaining of not being able to breathe, but the doctors got her on time.I came back with a note the next class proving she had an allergy because the school insisted on it. I swiftly changed schools.Thanks to a careless teacher who thought she knew better than me, my child nearly died.TAKE ALLERGIES SERIOUSLYEdit: Yes, I am aware that celiac itself cannot cause someone to have breathing problems, but my daughter has celiac disease AND a wheat allergy. The wheat allergy caused the breathing problems. Just to clarify.