Seaford parents want nut-free schools

As the number of children with food allergies rises, a group of parents in Seaford is seeking to make local public schools nut-free.

Parents have spoken up at recent Board of Education meetings, calling on district leaders to consider the change. Seaford school officials have decided to start an Anaphlaxis Committee to review the district’s policies and regulations, and say that any changes would be based on the committee’s recommendations.

“I think we will have a hearty discussion,” said Superintendent Brian Conboy, who is hoping to get the committee up and running when the school reopens after the holiday break.

Meredith McNamara, who is leading the group of parents, has four children, and her oldest, Robert, a second-grader at the Seaford Harbor School, is allergic to nuts. She explained that he is affected even when the allergen is airborne, so he doesn’t have to eat a nut to have a reaction.

She can control the food that he is around at home, she said, but she can’t when he is at school. Her concern is that when another child with a nut-based product, such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a bag of mixed nuts, touches something that her son touches, it could be a problem.

“I want a nut-free school district,” McNamara said. “Our children don’t have a choice not to be allergic.”

Chris Peraino’s daughter, Jessica, a kindergartner at Harbor, also has a nut allergy. Before she started school, Chris recalled, he asked a lot of questions about the district’s food and health policies, and wasn’t completely satisfied. As a result, his daughter has her own aide who carries an epinephrine pen, better known as an Epi-pen, at all times in case Jessica has an allergic reaction.

Even with the accommodations the school district has made for his daughter, Peraino said he would feel more comfortable if nuts were simply not allowed in the schools. “You’re not going to remove nuts from the world,” he said, “but any chance you increase our odds, the better. For something that could potentially kill a kid, I don’t think it’s asking a lot.”

Conboy said that the district has already done a lot as a result of the rising frequency of food allergies. Nuts are banned in classrooms where a student has an allergy, and parents are advised in a letter about products they cannot send with their child to school. Nurses have Epi-pens available in their offices. “The protocols that we have set up in our district are pretty extensive,” he said.

McNamara said that the school initially established a nut-free table in the cafeteria, but that isolated her son from his friends. Since then, he has sat with children with nut-free lunches. Many others parents, she said, understand that her son and others have food allergies, and out of courtesy have stopped sending their children to school with lunches or snacks that could trigger a reaction.

She and Peraino acknowledged that there are children who are “picky eaters” and like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day, but McNamara said there are alternatives that taste the same but will not endanger her child. “I don’t want the one place I send him every single day to be danger zone,” she said.

McNamara said that while she would like to see a nut-free policy implemented throughout the district, she is particularly interested in having it adopted in the elementary schools. Conboy added that it is at the elementary level where the majority of food allergy cases are found, because many children outgrow them by the time they reach middle school and high school.

“I can’t remember when I went to school any kid with a peanut allergy,” Peraino said, “but it happens now.”

Conboy said that the committee would comprise a cross-section of members of the school community, including parents, teachers and nurses, and that many people had expressed interest in joining. He expects it to include seven members of the Seaford staff and as well as himself and Assistant Superintendent John Stiffilino, and four to six community members. The goal is to have recommended guidelines in place by April to put in place next school year.

The superintendent said he would also like to find an expert on food allergies to meet with the group. As for banning nuts in schools, Conboy said he wanted to leave that to the recommendation of the committee, but he noted that such a ban is not common. “There are very few completely nut-free schools,” he said, adding that he has talked to superintendents in other districts. “I’m not going to make any judgment until I hear what people are feeling.”

McNamara and Peraino said it would be important to have at least one parent of a child with a food allergy on the committee. While they understand that a potential ban would likely be met with some resistance, they said they believe it is in the best interests of children with nut allergies.

“It’s not going to be a popular decision,” McNamara said, “but all it’s going to do is upset people for a minute, and it will save our children’s lives.”