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By KELLY HANNON
Peanut butter is a lunchtime staple in school cafeterias.
Paired with grape jelly and sandwiched between two slices of bread, or slathered on celery sticks, the high-protein food pleases even the pickiest eaters.
Except for children like Sue Dzurenda's 7-year-old son. Gavin, a second-grader at Spotsylvania's Parkside Elementary, has a peanut allergy.
Even a tiny morsel of a peanut or peanut snack can trigger a reaction. Gavin's tongue starts burning, and his body breaks out in hives and begins to swell.
"If they're little, you have to never let down your guard. Never let down your guard. And that's really hard," Dzurenda said.
In 2005, one in 25 school-age children had food allergies, and for many, it is a peanut allergy, according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.
The Fairfax-based FAAN, a national organization that tracks allergy cases, reports about 3 million Americans have a peanut allergy.
Dr. Peter Smith, an allergist who's worked in Fredericksburg for more than 30 years, says he has seen growing numbers of children with peanut allergies.
'There is no question there is a very significant increase," Smith said.
No one knows precisely why numbers are rising--Smith thinks it's related to the way peanuts are processed in America. But it's clear that elementary-school principals are increasingly being tasked with providing a safe environment for these students.
Fred Wells, principal at Smith Station Elementary in Spotsylvania, is one of them.
He toughened his school's peanut policy recently after a kindergartner suffered a life-threatening reaction during the first week of school.
He had already sent letters home to parents of students in the allergic child's class, asking them not to bring in peanut products for snack or class parties. Also, the school nurse worked with the allergy sufferer's parents to ensure her medication would be close at hand in an emergency.
It's a good thing they were prepared.
The kindergartner fell ill after eating a cookie offered by a classmate at lunch. The teacher, whose back was turned, didn't see the trade happening.
The little girl received immediate medical attention, Wells said. She improved significantly after getting an injection from her EpiPen, a needle that administers epinephrine, which reverses the symptoms of an anaphylactic reaction.
"She was in a very serious condition, but luckily the mother prepared us by letting us know about the child's condition," Wells said.
Still, "We realized maybe what we were doing was not enough," Wells said.
To prevent future swaps, Wells has created "peanut-free" zones at the end of each cafeteria table. The zones are demarcated by tape and are cleaned using a dedicated set of sponges.
To sit in a peanut-free zone, students must return a permission slip, signed by parents, pledging that the student's lunch will always be peanut-free.
Wells said this stance was a compromise. He didn't want to ban peanut products from school grounds, and he didn't want to ostracize students with peanut allergies by placing all of them at a separate table.
Schools in King George and Stafford also have peanut-free zones and tables in their cafeterias. Also, cafeteria cashiers in Fredericksburg and Stafford schools have access to student information when a child pays for a meal. Their computer screens instantly tell them whether a student has an allergy.
"They check what is on their tray to make sure they have not taken anything that has any peanut ingredients in it," said Gail Stone, director of administration and instruction for Fredericksburg City Schools.
Peanut allergy policies at Fredericksburg area schools are in line with most schools nationwide, said Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder and chief executive officer of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.
"Some of the most common policies are designating a peanut-free cafeteria table in the cafeteria, or a no food-trading policy, which helps children with allergies avoid the temptation or peer pressure to trade when they've brought safe food from home," Munoz-Furlong said.
Unfortunately, a few schools are dragging their heels, she said. FAAN is working to establish a federal policy that requires schools to take specific steps in response to children with peanut and other food allergies.
"There are still schools who don't have a child with a food allergy, and they don't have a policy," said Munoz-Furlong.
Eight foods account for 90 percent of all food-related reactions in the United States, according to FAAN. They are: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish.
Federal law already considers food allergies a disability, and schools must find ways to accommodate a child with a food or peanut allergy, Munoz-Furlong said.
Sue Dzurenda has tried to shield Gavin as much as possible from peanut products.
She's a pro at scanning labels, and knows which restaurants cook with peanut oil. All of her son's playmates have Benadryl in their homes. When Gavin was younger, she drove miles out of her way to send him to Stafford's Ferry Farm Preschool, which bans peanut products.
But once Gavin hit kindergarten, Dzurenda knew he'd be in an environment with peanuts--and classmates eager to swap food at lunch.
So every year, with the support of her school's principal, Dzurenda writes a letter to parents of Gavin's classmates, explaining her son's allergy and asking that they refrain for sending in peanut goodies for shared snacks and parties.
Usually, everyone is supportive, she said. But some people can't seem to give up the peanut butter. This year, a parent sent in Nutter Butter peanut-butter cookies for a class birthday party.
"I felt really bad. I had sent in Double Stuf Oreos and Chips Ahoy just in case," Dzurenda said. The teacher gave Gavin some of the back-up snacks and made sure he didn't eat the peanut butter cookies.
But the snack would've caused a problem for a more highly allergic child, one who has a reaction from the nearby presence of a peanut product.
It's a serious situation, says Dr. Smith, the local allergist.
"It's so important for parents of nonsensitive children to realize it truly can be a life-threatening experience if there is a peanut exposure, and that's why these children have to be accommodated," he said.
He can't blame schools for allowing children to bring peanut butter for lunch, though. "They're going to get a lot of static from people," if peanut products are banned.
However, eliminating peanut products would be the safest way to prevent serious reactions.
"In any given school, if 25 to 40 students have peanut allergies, three of them will be life-threatening. That's a significant amount. It would be comforting to parents of those students to know they're not likely to be exposed at school, where they're spending eight hours a day," Smith said.
Eventually, a vaccine may exist to halt peanut allergies. Unilever Bestfoods, maker of Skippy peanut butter, is helping to fund the cause.
"In the future, we're going to hopefully be able to de-sensitize to peanuts, and if that ever comes to pass, and we're hoping that it will, we can certainly reduce the number of life-threatening reactions," Smith said.
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