Food Allergy meeting report

The turnout was huge for a simple committee meeting last night, but then the topic was very big in its own right.

The meeting led with an introduction to the experience of being the parent of a child with a life-threatening food allergy by Loudoun Allergy Network (LAN) president Maria Hardy. There was a presentation by LAN's advising board certified allergist, Dr. Trivedi. Then Assistant Superintendent for Support Services Jeff Platenberg and Student Health Services Coordinator Kathy Sturgeon gave the LCPS side of the story.

Many key LCPS folks including Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Sharon Ackerman, Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Services Dr. Mary Kealy, Supervisor of Elementary Education Dr. Mike Martin, Director of Student Services Anne Lewis, the senior nursing staff and several elementary principals. Thanks to Blue Ridge District Representative Priscilla Godfrey for devoting her meeting this subject and leading the Q&A. Broad Run District Representative Bob Ohneiser also attended and had insightful questions and answers.

Dozens of parents (and some kids) were there, more than at any committee meeting I've ever attended. As I characterized it to the parents last night, the meeting was neither the beginning nor the end of the communication between parents and LCPS on the matter of food allergy safety. It was however a very important milestone and demonstrated to everyone in the room that it is a topic of is great interest from parents and LCPS employees at all levels.

I hope that the excellent presentation made by Ms. Sturgeon will also get wide distribution. Many people would be surprised to learn that every school-based staff member receives food allergy safety training and that many procedures are in place to ensure the safety of each child.

The Loudoun Allergy Network expressed a desire for new policies regarding food safety during and after the meeting. Mrs. Godfrey asked LAN to continue their research into best practices and report back to the committee at a future date. I hope that LCPS elementary principals will pay special attention to the benefits of the healthy snacks policies implemented by Belmont Station and Hamilton Elementary Schools and consider implementing them in their own schools for the benefit of all children.

Learning a Healthy Life

The Loudoun Times Mirror ran a series of articles just before Christmas profiling Belmont Station Elementary and issues of student nutrition and health. With the Washington Post's article on school lunches that I wrote about on Monday and the upcoming Health, Safety & Wellness committee meeting on school safety for children with food allergies, I thought it was a good time to revisit these great stories.

The story titled The Healthy Snacks School is an interesting case-in-point about how each of Loudoun's 72 schools (soon to be 75) operates independently in many ways. Consider the following:

This is the Healthy Snack School, and everyone seems to be on board with Principal Patricia McGinly's program. Students are starting to read labels. They detected corn syrup in the cafeteria's chocolate milk; now McGinly is on the hunt for a brand that shuns the offending ingredient.

Note that there is no system-wide directive here, no new policy. There is just the principal deciding that this will be an area of emphasis at her school. I emphasize this to parents repeatedly: If you want something done, don't start by lobbying the Superintendent to change the rules for every school, start by convincing a principal to change the approach for one school and let the success of your pilot program spread to other schools. That's the way almost every new program at LCPS comes about, even for those implemented by the senior administrators.

Despite the reporter's assessment that "everyone seems to be on board with" the program, my guess is that not every parent at Belmont Station likes these new rules. This can't be an easy culture shift, and I'd be interested to learn more about the growing pains.

Emphasizing the importance of study before implementation, the story called Learning To Eat profiles the study by a local researcher of the impact of various educational practices on students in four schools (the students volunteered to be a part of the study).

A 24-week study of the effect of teaching nutrition and offering structured exercise programs at four Loudoun elementary schools led researcher Karen Gabel Speroni to conclude that school nurses might use their position as "role models and spokespersons to foster increased activity and improved nutritional education in their schools and communities."

The study even had conclusions for the School Board, according to the story:

She recommended to the school board, at the conclusion of her study, that choice may not be the best path to health. Better, she suggested, to put out the "best choice" tray – the child can still choose between the two main entrees, but everything else will already be on the tray. The diner will not have the option of passing up the fruit and the vegetable.

I don't recall seeing the study or its conclusions, I hope that we will have a chance to review both in an upcoing Health, Safety & Wellness Committee meeting.

Finally, because health isn't all about the food, there is another story about innovations in physical education, again profiling Belmont Station as a host to a pilot program.

The children at Belmont Station get to work out with balance balls, exercise ladders and other equipment that helps them develop their core muscles. This program enables exercises to be tailored to each student's ability level. "This way, they all look like they're doing the same thing, and it doesn't single out kids," Jones said.

With limited time in the school day and ever-increasing pressure to improve academic performance, one of my favorite questions to ask is "how can we increase cross-discipline programs?" (Director of Instruction Peter Hughes is probably really sick of hearing me say that by now). The story cites a perfect example of this:

"We try to make anything fun and integrate academics whenever possible,” Comins said. An example, he said, was when they create a dance where the steps correspond to the water cycle. By remembering the dance, they remember academic material.

I applaud the parents, students and principal of Belmont Station Elementary for striving and innovating, not waiting for changes to be implemented at the top but instead setting an example for all the schools around them. I also applaud the Times Mirror for focusing on these important school issues.

Food Allergy Parent Group

I met briefly tonight with a group of parents who have children with food allergies. Their meeting overlapped with an important meeting of the Special Education Advisory Committee, so I couldn't stay as long as I wanted. Nevertheless, nearly 20 parents came to the meeting and I did get to talk individually with a handful of them.

The meeting was led by Maria Hardy, who has a blog called Allergy Free in Loudoun. These parents are dealing with an especially challenging life situation that I think most of us don't really understand. For these children, the real world is a dangerous place and allergies are not a health issue, they're a safety issue. It's far more complex than kids just staying away from foods that they're not supposed to eat. They need tremendous understanding from teachers, principals and fellow parents. Many times they get that understanding but sometimes they do not.

I hope that Maria or another parent will leave a comment here with a link to a webpage that can help people who are not familiar with childhood food allergies to understand the scope and importance of the challenge.

I am interested in exploring over the next year ways in which LCPS can help our teachers, principals and administrators with guidance and support in ensuring that every school is a safe place for every child with food allergies. If you are the parent of a child with food allergies, I encourage you to get in touch with this parent group for support, and with your school board member to let them know that this is an important issue for you. If you are facing challenges with your child's school or would like to highlight the ways in which your child's school is helping your child have a full and safe experience every day, I hope that you will let me or your school board representative know.