Arlington Heights School District May Ban Peanuts

A parent in the Arlington Heights School District 25 attended the school board meeting on March 19 to request that school board members and administrators consider making Olive-Mary Stitt Elementary School in Arlington Heights a peanut-free school.

The Daily Herald is reporting that the parent approached the school district after her daughter had an anaphylactic reaction at school on a day when she had not eaten anything containing peanuts.

“She sits at her own table away from her other third-grade friends,” the Daily Herald reported. “She rushed to the nurse when she felt the reaction start.

“As it became harder for her to breathe, the school nurse administered a shot of epinephrine with an EpiPen. (The student’s) face and body started to puff up and, when her parents arrived, they rushed to Northwest Community Hospital while the principal rode in an ambulance with (the student) to the emergency room.”

Anaphalaxis is a sometimes life-threatening allergic reaction to anything from food allergies to bee stings.

Arlington Heights School District 25 Superintendent Joan Bein said she could not discuss the incident at the school specifically nor could she clarify if the reaction of the student in question could be narrowed down to peanuts.

“I can’t tell you about her specifically,” Bein said. “I can tell you that there is a variety of reactions to peanuts that children have.

“Some are from eating it, some are from touching it and some are airborne.”

The school currently provides peanut-free tables at lunch and if a child has a known peanut allergy, the school provides a peanut-free classroom. But the possibility of creating a peanut-free school or a peanut-free district is a new idea.

“We’re really at a very beginning stage,” Bein said. “I’m relly just at the beginning.

“I am open to finding out what options are out there.”

Bein said she is considering whether or not such a move would be appropriate for the school and the district’s students. She added that going peanut free is not a guarantee.

“No school can ever say that they are 100 percent peanut free,” she said. “You know, someone could have had peanut for breakfast and not have washed their hands.”

Bein said she had not given the parent who came out to the meeting a timeline for an answer.

“I felt like a parent asked for us to consider something and I feel like it’s only right for us to research it,” she said.