The Parent’s Guide To Critical Food Allergy Training For Schools

UPDATED July 2023

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In the beginning, I had no idea there were so many ways that food allergies impact the school. Of course, there are recess snacks and lunches kids bring, but depending on the classroom, there’s also food used in the class curriculum, birthday treats, bake sales, fall fairs, celebration days, field trips, and more.

So as time went on (over 13 years now), I not only realized how MUCH food is part of a school, but I also began to realize HOW important food allergy training for schools was.

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Should parents be a part of the food allergy training for schools?

One of the biggest things I’ve learned over the years is that there isn’t enough food allergy awareness in our schools.

Unfortunately, some teachers and schools don’t even have a good awareness of the symptoms of anaphylaxis or how to use the epinephrine injector. These are the BASIC food allergy safety requirements.

Even if the school does yearly food allergy training about anaphylaxis and epinephrine use, the teachers are not taught about cross-contact and how it affects their classroom, how important label reading is, or how birthday celebrations can cause food allergy kids to be excluded and left out.

That’s why parents need to provide food allergy training for schools and teachers.

This isn’t because teachers are trying to hurt kids or make things harder. It’s just that food allergy awareness is still lacking in schools, and teachers just don’t know what they don’t know.

Since preschool, I’ve been meeting with my daughter’s teacher to discuss food allergy safety.

Over the years, I've become more structured and knowledgeable about HOW I present food allergies to our teachers. I figured out that to cover all the bases, we need to go over the daily school routines and find all the ways that food impacts those routines and how to either create new routines or find ways to make the same routines safe.

After 13 years of school experience, I now have what I call a School Allergy Plan Template. This is a DETAILED template that can be used to educate your teacher (and school) so that your child is safe and included at school. I created a template that will help you ask the right questions and work with your teacher and school to keep your child safe and included.

There are over 100 hours of trusted research and time in this template as I refined it over the years. The template can be used by any parent and for any food allergy. as food allergy training for schools and teachers

In the US, you might create a 504 plan for food allergies, which is a legal document. Once created, it is required to be followed. My School Allergy Plan Template can be used as a starting point for a 504 Plan in the US if you choose to go that route.

In Canada, there isn’t a legal document like a 504 plan, but the School Allergy Plan Template can still be used for critical food allergy training for schools & teachers every year.

Is food allergy training for schools required for your child?

In short, if you are a parent of a child who has a prescription for epinephrine, you will want to ensure you do a yearly food allergy training with your teacher.

I know some of you aren’t sure how severe your child’s allergy is because even though you have a prescription for epinephrine, your child has never had more than a few hives when they eat their allergen. If this is the case, you need to know: food allergy reactions are NOT consistent, and you can’t base future reactions on past reactions. Having mild reactions can be misleading because the body can react severely at any time and you never know when or if it will happen.

So, if your child has a prescription for epinephrine (or EpiPen or Auvi-Q or Allerject), it means your child has the possibility of having an anaphylactic or severe reaction; and the BEST way to stop anaphylaxis is to completely avoid the allergens and traces of the allergens.

This means your teacher & school NEED to know NOT ONLY how to recognize an anaphylactic reaction and then have the confidence to use the epinephrine injector, but also how to avoid allergens and keep your child included.

Even if your school already trains staff about how to recognize anaphylaxis and how to use the epinephrine injector (EpiPen), you are not off the hook!

Yes, this is all a part of essential food allergy training for schools, but teachers also need help preventing anaphylaxis in the first place and keeping your child included at school.

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Benefits of Food Allergy Training For Schools & Teachers

So how does taking the time to do a thorough food allergy training with your teacher each year help your child?

First of all, it decreases the chance that your child will encounter their allergen(s). Then, if an allergen is encountered and anaphylaxis occurs, the right training will improve the chances of the best-case scenario for your child.

There are lots of other benefits too:

1. It increases teacher & school food allergy awareness.

No matter how allergy-aware your school might seem, there’s always food allergy training that needs to be done.

WARNING: Sometimes teachers get a false sense of security from the school allergy policies because they don’t know what they don’t know, and as parents, it’s often up to us to educate them.

What I mean by this… My daughter went to a nut-free school. Over the years, our family found a couple of dynamics happening with this.

Teachers had a false sense of security because in theory there were no nuts allowed. The problem was that my kids saw nuts or nut products OFTEN. Like Nutella, peanut butter cups, chocolate bars with nuts and more. Yes, our Principal made a big deal about reminding everyone not to bring nuts, but it was always there. Either parents would forget, or they would “sneak” it in because maybe they had a picky eater and that’s all their kids would eat.

But the staff thought, Oh, there won’t be nuts so we don’t need to worry as much about that nut-allergic student. Which was false.

Research also backs this up because…

It has been shown that epinephrine injections do NOT decrease when allergy bans are in place at school.

The most recent 2023 Anaphylaxis Practice Parameter Update states that current research does not support consistent benefits with allergen-specific prohibitions. ALTHOUGH, it MAY be helpful to have allergen-restricted “zones” like a milk-free table when there are kids who cannot self-manage.

I feel like this false sense of security may be one reason why epinephrine injections don’t decrease with allergy bans because overall good allergy habits don’t happen like they should.

So, whether or not your school has an allergen ban, you will need to educate your teacher and school.

2. The second thing I noticed was that even the nut-allergy parents got a false sense of security too. So my daughter had a friend growing up who also had a nut allergy. She went to the same school and she didn’t worry about educating her teachers because she thought that because there weren’t supposed to be nuts, everything would be ok. But given the amount of nuts at school, she was lulled into a false sense of security.

There are just too many misunderstandings and too much misinformation about food allergies. The only way to eliminate these is to discuss with your teachers on a one-to-one basis. That training might prevent anaphylaxis in the first place, or allow your child to feel more included in the classroom, or even save their life.

2. Food allergy training will prepare your young child to make better decisions during the difficult teen years and normalize allergies with their peers.

I believe that educating teachers will help your child in the long term.

It’s been shown that teens who are not confident with their allergy may “hide” the allergy from their friends because they’re embarrassed by it and they don’t want to be different. Because of this, they might be put into dangerous situations like kissing someone who’s eaten their allergen; not carrying their epinephrine, or not teaching their friends what to look for or do if they react.

With food allergy training at school, while your child is young, you can include ways to encourage peer knowledge of the allergy AND teach your food allergy kid how to take responsibility and not be afraid to talk about allergies.

We want allergies to be common and normal so educating and advocating isn’t new when they get to the teen years.

The more it’s talked about throughout their life, the more it will be normalized for them and their peers, which will increase their confidence.

3. Food allergy training at school begins the process of independence in a safe environment.

We all know that kids need to learn independence.

The fear of an anaphylactic reaction at school makes this process much harder. In fact, food-allergy kids often don’t become independent from their parents as fast as non-food-allergy kids.

By training your teacher and school and therefore creating a safe environment at school, and including your kid in that plan with their responsibilities, you're allowing your child to gain confidence and learn how to protect themselves in an environment that is still protected enough for the stage they’re at.

4. Food allergy training at school decreases the stress of the food allergy parent & child.

Letting our babies go out that door into the big world by themselves is HARD. For me, adding the worry of an anaphylactic reaction while I’m not there brings me to my knees. Knowing that I’ve trained her teacher well so that I’m confident my child is safe in their care is priceless.

“Eighteen percent of schools recorded an anaphylactic event in 2014/15 school year.”

5. Training your teacher increases the teacher’s confidence in an emergency.

A survey of 12, 181 schools 2014/15 school year showed that approx.18% of schools recorded an anaphylactic reaction that year. I know the LAST thing any teacher wants is for one of their kids to have an anaphylactic reaction on their watch. Showing your child’s teacher how to avoid allergens, how to recognize the symptoms of anaphylaxis, and how to use the EpiPen will give the teacher confidence to know what to do in an anaphylactic emergency.

What Should Your Food Allergy Training For School & Teacher Cover?

As I mentioned above, food plays a big part in the school which means your training will be quite detailed. In general, it should cover; the management of the allergen(s) and how to avoid them in the daily school routines & processes. Safeguarding the classroom and lunchroom is important. Training of staff & peers should also be discussed. I always make sure that the teacher knows the symptoms of anaphylaxis and how to use epinephrine.

You may also want to discuss certain accommodations that may need to be made to make the school safer.

My School Allergy Plan Template goes into great detail about what to cover so you don’t have to figure it out over 13 years like I did!

Learn more

**When you click the link or the button above, you’ll go to the information page for the School Allergy Plan Template and School Success Pack. I completely trust and recommend these products!

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How Else Can You Plan for School with Food Allergies?

Not only do you need to work with your teacher and school, but it’s also important to be empowering your child so they can help keep themselves safe.

Want to know how?

I’ve got a FREE food allergy Kids Empowerment Guide to help. It’s for kids aged 2-7. You’ll get all the things I taught my daughter (plus some things I WISH I would have taught her now that I look back all those years). It’s in a quick-reference checklist form so it’s super convenient.

You can grab it for free here so you can start planning for school with food allergies: