Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Episode 91: Understanding Food-Allergy Safety in CSD Schools
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies impact one in 13 children. That's about two students per classroom, and those numbers are on the rise, increasing 50 percent between 1997 and 2011.
It's all but impossible to eliminate food allergies, as they're synonymous with our main food groups. But we can work with families to create healthy plans to keep Canyons District students safe.
In this week’s episode of Connect Canyons, we sit down with Sebasthian Varas, Director of CSD’s Nutritional Services team, Emily Jenkins the District’s Dietitian, and Canyons Nursing Specialist Jen Gerrard. The trio discusses steps schools take to safeguard students from coming into contact with allergens and put health plans in place for students with known or suspected allergies.
Episode Chapters
00:00 — Introduction to Food Allergies
We discuss leading causes of food allergies in the U.S.
01:16 — Health Action Plans in Schools
Gerrard walks us through the process of understanding each student’s individual needs and how schools are working to have a record of which students may have allergies.
03:00 — Recognizing Allergic Reactions
Gerrard describes different types of allergic reactions, and which symptoms can indicate a serious problem. She explains the emergency protocols schools have in place to respond to and treat anaphylaxis. Each school within the District, for example, is equipped with a stock of epinephrine, most commonly known as EpiPens.
05:25 — Preventing Cross Contact in School Kitchens
Varas and Jenkins discuss the measures Canyons District has in place at each school to prevent cross-contamination, such as encouraging hand washing before and after meals, purchasing and preparing gluten-free alternatives, and preparing and serving meals in separate ovens and on separate trays.
08:28 — Educating Students and Parents
Our guests share ways parents can help when it comes to educating their children about allergies, even if they don’t have allergies themselves. We also hear how parents can still provide a fun snack for a class while being mindful about potential allergies. As Varas say: “Education starts in the home. We encourage parents to talk to their children about allergies, even though they may not be allergic to something, just being aware other people may be allergic to things. That also comes with the responsibility of washing your hands and maybe not sharing food with other students. It’s not because you don’t want to be kind, it’s to keep everyone safe.”
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyons School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2:According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies impact one in 13 children in the United States. That's about two students per classroom, and those numbers are on the rise, increasing 50% between 1997 and 2011. Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, frances Cook. It's all but impossible to eliminate food allergies, as they're synonymous with our main food groups, but we can work with families to create healthy plans to keep students safe. To that end, I'm joined today by members of our team who are in charge of our nutritional services as well as our nursing team. With me is Sebastian Varas, our Director of Nutritional Services for the district, emily Jenkins, our Canyons dietitian, and Jen Gerard, our school nurse specialist. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, we're happy to be here.
Speaker 2:So, as I mentioned, food allergies are part of some of our major food groups. There are nine leading causes of food allergies in the US. They're milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame, and this year we're introducing pre-packaged peanut butter sandwiches. So Canyons has eight of those nine in our elementary schools, excluding the tree nuts. Jen, I'd like to start with you. Can we talk about what kind of health action plans do we have in place in our elementary schools? Give us an idea of some of the steps nurses are taking to safeguard our students. Sure, thank you.
Speaker 4:Our nurses are working with families directly and we create an individualized health care plan for students that have a known or suspected allergy to a substance or a food. So it could be food, it could be a bee sting, it could be any number of things that they could come in contact with at school. We work with all of those families, if they have a history of anaphylaxis, to create a plan so for food-related plans, um. So the parents will oftentimes reach out to the school first and then they will connect them with their school nurse. Their school nurse will collect a little bit of health history and get some information from the parents so that they can identify what sort of systems we can put in place in school to help protect them and keep them as safe as possible during the school day.
Speaker 4:Exposures and triggers and things that we need to try to avoid. We do our best Some things are not always avoidable, but we do our best to avoid things. And then, from the individualized health care plan, the nurses will create what we call an emergency action plan and that plan is outlined for the school teams to follow and it's very much, if you see this, do this. So within that emergency action plan we include a little bit of health history about the student when the last time was that they had an anaphylactic reaction and how that was treated, what it looked like for that individual student, because people can present with different signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis or allergies. Then we will talk about the triggers and the things that they need to avoid for that child. So if they have an allergy to peanuts, we're making it very focused on peanuts, obviously, and how to avoid those, and then we make arrangements from there obviously, and how to avoid those, and then we make arrangements from there.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned those action plans and how things can appear differently in different people. Can you tell us what some of the common symptoms of an allergic reaction are? What can our parents and students be looking out for?
Speaker 4:Allergic reactions vary in intensity, severity, for each individual. Just a mild allergic reaction could be something as simple as their tongue is tingly or they have a little bit of a rash on their chest or their neck. More severe reactions would be a full body rash, constant vomiting, like severe vomiting that starts after ingesting a substance that you're allergic to. Then from there we worry about anything from the neck up more, because it's going to affect the airway a little bit easier. So if there's any swelling of the airway, they're having difficulty talking, swallowing, breathing. That's emergent automatically. If they have swelling of their lips or their eyes or their face in any way, we're always way more concerned, and that's when we're going to respond with epinephrine.
Speaker 2:We have EpiPens in our schools. Some people may not know what that means, but we want parents to know that we have that plan in place. So can you talk about how we utilize those EpiPens?
Speaker 4:Sure, all of our schools have what we reference as a stock epinephrine. Sometimes most often that's EpiPen, sometimes it's Avicu, but the medication, the actual drug, is the same. Epinephrine is essentially adrenaline. It's something that your body produces on its own, but it stifles or it blocks that histamine response. Your airway doesn't swell to the point that you can't breathe, so it essentially reverses it. Some people require more than one dose, and so in all of our schools we have at least two doses of each type.
Speaker 4:In elementaries we have two doses of junior epinephrine that we can use for anybody that's smaller, like K through 2, and then we have adult, two doses of adult epinephrine for those that are in third plus, so that could be a teacher, it could be a fifth grader, it could be anybody in the building that needs it. And then in our secondary schools we have four doses of the adult epinephrine, so it's for anybody in the building that's above 66 pounds. Essentially we do a lot of training on that epinephrine and we have those available. There are students the students that have a known history of allergies or anaphylaxis. They typically will bring in their own prescription and they'll have an epinephrine pen, whether it's EpiPen or Avicu, that's assigned specifically to them. And then we have the stock as a backup for anybody that has an allergic reaction that we maybe didn't suspect or they didn't know they were allergic to that substance.
Speaker 2:Sure, that's really good to know that we have the two different doses. I wouldn't have even thought about that. For our smaller kiddos, emily and Sebastian, I'd like to bring you in. As Jen mentioned, there's a lot of training that goes on with our staff, whether that's nursing training or also can you talk about how we're mitigating cross-contact with food allergies?
Speaker 3:After students are identified as having an allergy to a certain food that we serve and they want to eat school meals with us, we then take that and we make a plan with our kitchen staff so that they are made aware of the students, so that we know exactly what foods to avoid. We can go through the menu and decide what they are and are not able to eat. And then we create a plan with the kitchen staff so that includes training them on avoiding cross-contact when they're preparing food. For example, we have a number of students that have celiac disease and so we purchase and prepare gluten-free alternatives to the menu that we're already creating, and so we teach them how to cook that food in a separate oven, put it on a separate tray.
Speaker 3:When they're at service time, they'll set aside food prior to the other students getting food. For example, tater tots. They'll set those aside prior so that there's no possible cross-contact when they're serving. Oh, they touch the regular chicken nuggets and then the tater tots with their gloved hands. So we try to make sure that we're setting aside food so that it's completely separate when we know of an allergen and we're making sure that we're preparing foods in separate ovens, completely covering it so that there's no food particles that could fly into it. And we make sure that we provide training as we get new students or are identified with new students, and then each year we remind them of those protocols for when there is a food allergy.
Speaker 5:Since we're talking about the PB&J, the peanut butter sandwiches, it's also, I think, worth mentioning that that's the only product that we are bringing in our kitchens that contains peanuts, and the product comes sealed in a package and it's for the same purposes is to avoid that cross-contact. Also, our protocol is, as soon as a grade is done eating lunch and they're dismissed to recess, our workers go and clean every table and the benches where the students sit in between lunches to avoid also that cross-contact. In some cafeterias you may see also tables that are designated specifically to be peanut-aware, meaning that nobody that has a lunch containing peanuts or tree nuts can eat at that table. And that's also designated for students who may have an allergy, for them to create a safe environment so they can be not in contact with these products.
Speaker 2:That's really great. You mentioned the peanut-free table, peanut-aware table. Excuse me, let's talk about food sharing. I mean, we've all grown up with kind of that sharing is caring mentality but in this case that may not be the best idea and we have parents who may be bringing in treats for classes, etc. What do parents and students need to be aware of as they're bringing in their own foods?
Speaker 5:For me, I think, education comes from home and is telling your as a parent, telling your students about allergies. Even though they may not be allergic to something is being aware that other people may be allergic and what allergies are, what anaphylaxis means, and with that comes the responsibility of washing your hands properly when you are eating something that may be containing an allergen or not sharing food. Of course, kids will be kids, but they learn through repetition and it's just making them constantly aware of that message and reminding them don't share food with any other students and it's not because you don't want to be kind it's to keep everyone safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're trying to encourage that hand washing a little bit more. This year we're going to start putting up those posters and it's not just washing your hands before you eat, but after as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, I can speak to that a little bit. When you have an allergen or some substance in your hand, such as we use peanut butter for an easy example, that protein, those allergens that are in that, the protein that causes the allergy for the individual that's allergic to peanuts remains intact on the skin with that peanut butter on the skin. And so some people have allergies that are so severe that just coming in contact with their skin so they don't even have to ingest it it just gets on their skin. That can put them into a life-threatening anaphylactic allergic reaction. Trying to increase some of the hand hygiene after eating is helpful because it does help reduce some of those proteins and those allergens that might still be on the skin of the hands of those who ate them. A lot of times people will be like we'll just have everybody hand sanitized right after lunch, but the hand sanitizer doesn't actually remove the protein, it's just killing the germs, so it's not doing anything to remove the allergen that could potentially cause somebody to have an allergic reaction.
Speaker 2:That's really good to know. I didn't know that. So what do you need to know from parents who have students with allergies? You know what kind of health information would you like them to be providing?
Speaker 4:So all parents answer a health questionnaire in their registration, and that includes whether they have a history of allergies and, if they have a history of anaphylaxis, specifically if they have a prescription for EpiPen or epinephrine, and so I think it's helpful for parents to answer those questions. However, we don't always get to those responses straight out the gate at the beginning of the year, because we're trying to coordinate the plans that we do know about. So if you have a child that has a history of an allergic reaction, even if it wasn't anaphylactic, I think it's important to reach out to the school, make sure the school is aware and have them get you in touch with the school nurse so that they can see what plans may be beneficial and what arrangements may be helpful for your student.
Speaker 2:What else do you all want our parents and students to know about the actions we're taking when it comes to food allergies?
Speaker 5:For me. I'm grateful that the district is taking a more individualized approach to this problem. Like you mentioned, food allergies are increasing and to prepare students for the world that we live in, where we can become in contact with an allergen anywhere we go. We really cannot control what people may bring from home or something. Having this approach will allow parents to actually feel that their students will be safer at schools because we are aware of the allergy we are aware of the environment and we can control a few things to make this environment safer for the students.
Speaker 5:So I'm very grateful that the district is taking this approach and I'm grateful for the support we got from the nurses, from the dietician, from all of our teams that work together with these individuals to keep them safe.
Speaker 4:Another thing that I wanted to mention really quickly though, about sharing food and having treats that come in for birthdays and things like that.
Speaker 4:I think it's impossible to avoid bringing in allergens, with there being so many that are common to cause issues.
Speaker 4:So when they have class parties, when they have birthday treats, things like that, I think that we do a lot of training with our school teachers to let them know hey, these are the students in your class that we're most concerned about.
Speaker 4:That we know about and we try to educate them so that we can all be on high alert for these allergens to come into the room. We also work with those parents of those students that have the history of the allergic reaction and we encourage them to bring in some kind of like a Rubbermaid or a bin of safe snacks. So if there is a birthday treat that comes in, there's also a sealed little cupcake of some sort that's safe for that child to eat, whether it be gluten-free or avoid other allergens. And so for any student that we know about, that's what we encourage the families to do. That way we know for sure there are these items that the child does like and that are safe for them to have in the event that there's a birthday treat coming in, so that they don't feel left out when everybody else is eating a cupcake.
Speaker 2:We're not asking them to live in a bubble. Just be aware that this is an issue for, like you said, individualized classrooms and students and cases. I want to thank you all for being here. The safety and happiness of our students is top of mind here at the district and it's evident with all of the procedures that you've all put in place and the training that takes place every single year. We appreciate the hard work that your teams do.
Speaker 2:Thank you and thank you all for joining us. If there's a topic you would like to hear discussed, send us an email to communications at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
