Northwest Arkansas Schools Make Accommodations For Allergies

STAFF PHOTO ANTHONY REYES Trays are stacked and numbered Thursday at George Elementary School in Springdale. Each grade is numbered for students to keep the correct amount of food prepared for lunch.

STAFF PHOTO ANTHONY REYES Trays are stacked and numbered Thursday at George Elementary School in Springdale. Each grade is numbered for students to keep the correct amount of food prepared for lunch.

Monday, March 3, 2014

— Megan Gillespie could die in a minute if she ate a tree nut, such as a cashew or walnut.

Luckily for Megan, a seventh-grader at McNair Middle School in Fayetteville, she has never had an allergic reaction at school because she always packs her own lunch, said Carol Gillespie, Megan's mother.

At A Glance

Common Food Allergies

• Milk

• Eggs

• Soy

• Wheat

• tree nuts

• Fish

• Shellfish

• Peanuts

Source: kidshealth.org

By The Numbers

Allergies In The U.S.

4 to 6 percent — Number of children affected by food allergies.

18 percent — Increase in the prevalence of childhood food allergies from 1997 to 2007.

88 percent — Schools that had one or more students with a food allergy in 2006.

25 percent — Allergic reactions at schools in children who have not been diagnosed with a food allergy.

16 to 18 percent — Children with food allergies who have had an allergic reaction after accidentally eating a food allergen at school

14 — Number of states with formal guidelines to improve the management of food allergies in schools

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

At A Glance

Childhood Food Allergy Symptoms

• Tongue or mouth is tingling or burning.

• Tongue or mouth itches.

• Tongue feels like there is hair on it.

• Tongue feels full or heavy.

• Lips feel tight.

• Throat feels thick.

• Feeling of a bump on the back of the tongue or throat.

• Feeling of something stuck in throat.

Source: cdc.gov

School officials have ways to keep track of allergies for students who don't pack their lunches. At George Elementary School in Springdale, that involves scanning a lunch card.

Kindergarten students lined up for lunch Thursday and handed their cards to a cafeteria staff member, who scanned them into a computer.

If a child had an allergy, the staff member walked to the serving line and pointed out the student. Servers find the child among the photos taped to serving carts and find the allergy written next to it. They then make sure to give the child a meal that doesn't contain anything to which they are allergic.

The system works well, because each child who has an allergy is labeled as such in the computer system, said Beckie Little, cafeteria manager. Cafeteria staff members meet every morning to plan what children with allergies will eat. Staff members spend 15 to 20 extra minutes every morning preparing allergy sensitive meals.

On Thursday, students could choose between a baked potato or a turkey and cheese sandwich. Those who had to avoid gluten got a baked potato, which was prepared before the sandwiches and kept separate to avoid contamination.

Gluten is a substance found in bread and grain products, Little said. Children who eat gluten-free meals are classified as having a gluten intolerance, and extreme cases can result in celiac disease, said Adesua Wejinya, an allergist with Hedberg Allergy and Asthma Center in Rogers and Fayetteville.

Officials in Springdale, Bentonville, Rogers and Fayetteville school districts said they've seen increasing numbers of children in the past three to five years who can't eat gluten. There is no clear answer as to why the number of children with gluten intolerance has increased, Wejinya said.

The computer system used at George is used across the Springdale School District, said Carol Godfrey, district food services director. Peanut products aren't used in any elementary school cafeterias, and some schools have tables where peanuts and peanut products are not allowed.

"It's kind of a cooperative effort," she said. "We do everything we can to make sure everyone is taken care of and there are no issues."

Each child in the district has a health card on file, said Amy Schultz, school nurse at George. If she gets a card listing a food allergy, she contacts the parents and asks for a note from their doctor about the allergy. She then meets with the parents to create a plan for handling the allergy at school. The information is given to the student's teacher and put into the cafeteria computer system.

School employees in Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and Fayetteville work with students who have allergies on a case-by-case basis, according to officials. School employees in Fayetteville work with children individually, because every allergy is a bit different, said Morgan Stout, district director of child nutrition.

"It's not just K through 12," he said. "It affects colleges, universities and K through 12 alike."

Cafeterias at Rogers' middle schools and high schools use some products that come from facilities that have nuts, said Margie Bowers, district food services director. Schools that have students with severe peanut allergies avoid using any products related to peanuts.

"To be truly nut-free, (a product) must be produced in a facility where nothing is produced with nuts," she said.

Bentonville elementary schools are peanut-free and have a peanut-free table, said Robert Ginder, district general manager for nutrition services. The tables help, because it is difficult to monitor sack lunches at the school, which could contain a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Elementary school cafeterias in Bentonville have a computer system similar to the one in Springdale, Ginder said. Before computers, the schools posted allergies on a board.

School officials said the most common food allergies they see are peanuts, gluten, wheat, soy, milk and pork. Megan's allergy to tree nuts is another common food allergy. Ginder said sesame seeds is the strangest allergy he has seen at a Bentonville school.

Gillespie said Megan was only 4 when her allergy was discovered. They were at Silver Dollar City in Missouri to see a Christmas parade when Megan ate a bite of her mother's pecan praline. Megan went to play in a ball pit, and when she came out, she had bags under her eyes and her heart was beating faster than normal. She started throwing up, her face started swelling and she had trouble breathing.

"You can't panic," Gillespie said. "You kind of have to deal with it, because you don't want to freak them out when they're little."

Gillespie said she took Megan into the bathroom and gave her Benadryl to stop the allergic reaction. The swelling subsided and her heart rate returned to normal, but Gillespie said the incident made it apparent something was wrong.

"I knew that was probably a sign of an allergy, so I took her to an allergist after that," she said.

When an individual has an allergic reaction, the body releases a substance called histamine, Wejinya said. Histamine can cause a person to experience hives, itching, swelling, wheezing, difficulty breathing, chest tightness, vomiting and low blood pressure. An epinephrine injection works by reversing the symptoms through an increase in blood pressure and reducing constriction of airways.

NW News on 03/03/2014