School Committee to Look at Food Allergy Policy

It's been a growing concern not just in Winchester, but across the country. Food allergies are becoming more and more common and for some students it makes going to the cafeteria a difficult task.

After some residents brought up concerns regarding the town's life-threatening food allergy policy, the has decided to form a sub-committee to look at the problem and to see what can be done.

The main concern revolves around peanut butter.

As one resident pointed out, 70 percent of towns in the state don't serve peanut butter as an option, so she was surprised to see that Winchester had it on their menu.

"I don't feel we have a true policy regarding food allergies," said resident Stephen Morrison. "Elementary schools just don't get it. They don't get the dangers of an allergy. I think it should be a community-wide ban."

High school seemed to be a different study, but many were concerned about having peanut butter an option to younger children when many could be allergic to it.

"More needs to be done, there needs to be studies and we need to find out how many kids in the district have allergies and what they are allergic too," said resident Michael Houllahan. "At the elementary level, it's difficult to trust a seven-year-old to make those decisions. We need to consider taking [peanut butter] off the menu."

Winchester resident, Jacqueline Richardson, explained that her daughter has been taking to the emergency room seven times. And one time she said that a fellow student, who got mad at her, put peanut butter on her face.

"It's difficult to ask a child to know how serious this is," Richardson said.

School Committee member Chris Nixon said that in some schools those with peanut allergies are segregated form the rest of the school – in the classroom or in the cafeteria.

The Committee decided that this was a policy worth looking into to see if they can make any changes to it.

"Each child comes in and we know their allergies," said chair of the School Committee, Sarah Girotti. "We're given a plan for each student. We need to look back and see what the daily procedure are and make the necessary adjustments."